Where does lithium come from?
From two very different sources: salty water under South American salt flats, and a hard mineral called spodumene mined mostly in Australia.
In Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, lithium is dissolved in brine beneath salt flats. Producers pump the brine into large ponds and let the sun evaporate the water for a year or more until the lithium is concentrated enough to process. It is cheap to run but slow, and it depends on water rights in very dry places.
In Australia, lithium is locked inside spodumene, a hard rock mineral. It is mined in open pits, crushed into a concentrate and shipped to chemical plants, most of them in China, that convert it into battery-grade material. This route is faster to start and easier to scale, but it uses more energy.
A third family of methods, direct lithium extraction, pulls lithium from brine with filters or solvents instead of ponds. It promises faster output and less water lost to evaporation. Several projects are testing it at commercial scale, including clay and geothermal brine deposits in the United States.
- Largest producer
- Australia, followed by Chile (US Geological Survey)
- Lithium triangle
- Chile, Argentina and Bolivia
Explainers describe how things generally work. They are not advice for a specific project or country. See our editorial policy.