New paper published in Energy & Environmental Materials on continuous lithium-ion extraction via fuel cell desalination

New paper published in Energy & Environmental Materials. A few years ago, then-PhD-student Zhang Yuan explored with us the adoption of a fuel cell for continuous water desalination. Basically, a fuel cell can be “fooled” to desalinate an inflowing water stream by replacing the common proton exchange membrane with a flow channel, contained within a pair of an anion and a cation exchange membrane. Thereby, while consuming fuel (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen), electricity is generated and water desalted all at once. Now, we have moved one step further: making fuel cell desalination lithium-ion selective for direct lithium-ion extraction from seawater or mine water (other water media work too).

Our team, lead by Cansu Kök, and with Lei Wang, Jean Gustavo De Andrade Ruthes, Antje Quade (from the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP Greifswald) e.V.), and Matthew Suss (from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; now at Form Energy), has developed the first-ever fuel cell system designed specifically for continuous lithium-ion extraction. This approach utilizes a lithium superionic conductor membrane alongside advanced electrodes to enhance efficiency and environmental sustainability.

A titania-coated electrode in our fuel cell achieves a 95% lithium-ion purity and produces 10.23 Wh of energy per gram of lithium. Thanks to atomic layer deposition, we’ve significantly improved the electrode’s uniformity, stability, and electrocatalytic activity, maintaining stability even after 2000 cycles.