What direct lithium extraction changes
Lithium sits dissolved in brine, salty water pumped up from underground. The old method pumps that brine into shallow ponds and lets the sun evaporate the water for a year or more, then filters lithium salts out of what is left. Eramet, a French mining company, says that method recovers only 40% to 50% of the lithium in the brine. Direct lithium extraction instead runs the brine through a chemical step inside a plant that pulls the lithium out while the brine is still liquid. Eramet opened its Centenario plant, in the Salar de Centenario Ratones salt flat in Argentina, on July 3, 2024. It recovers about 90% of the lithium in the brine, in about 1 week, against the 12 to 18 months evaporation needs for the same enrichment step. Eramet calls the new process 50% more efficient. A peer reviewed review of extraction methods gives the same 12 to 18 months figure for evaporation at a different site, Salar de Atacama in Chile, independently matching the number Eramet gives for its own comparison.
The leap in lithium recovery in China
Qinghai CITIC Guoan Technology Development, a Chinese company, brought a new 20,000 tonne desalinated brine adsorption lithium extraction production line up to its target capacity, announced on January 23, 2026. Adsorption is a step where a material acts like a sponge and grabs lithium out of the brine as it flows past. At the salt pan stage, recovery rose from an industry average under 50% to over 78%. Across the whole production line, overall recovery rose from 75.38% to 90.41%, while lithium loss fell and the process also recovers potassium and boron, 2 other minerals dissolved in the same brine.
The Qinghai figures are the overall recovery of one production line in China, reported by the company that runs it, source 4. The Eramet figure is recovery at a separate plant in Argentina, reported by that company, source 1. They are 2 different plants, not 2 counts of the same number.
Show the numbers
| Qinghai, before | 75.38 |
| Qinghai, after | 90.41 |
| Eramet, Argentina | 90 |
How much lithium these plants can make
Eramet designed its Centenario plant to reach 24,000 tonnes a year of battery grade lithium carbonate, the refined lithium compound battery makers buy, once the first phase runs at full capacity, at a forecast cost of around 870 million dollars. Vulcan Energy in Germany runs a similar process, called adsorption type direct lithium extraction, on geothermal brine, hot underground water that is also used to make electricity. The Frankfurt facility that turns that brine into lithium hydroxide, a different refined lithium compound, began production on November 12, 2024, but only at qualification volume for named buyers. The Phase 1 target for that project, once fully built, is 24,000 tonnes a year, which the company says is enough lithium hydroxide for around 500,000 electric vehicles a year.
The Qinghai figure is currently operating output, reported by the company, source 4. The Eramet and Vulcan figures are Phase 1 targets once fully built, not current output. Eramet already produces lithium carbonate at its plant, source 1. Vulcan currently produces only qualification volumes at a smaller facility, source 5.
Show the numbers
| Qinghai CITIC Guoan, China, operating now | 20,000 |
| Eramet, Argentina, phase 1 target | 24,000 |
| Vulcan Energy, Germany, phase 1 target | 24,000 |
The United States is still funding the smaller step
The United States Department of Energy was still paying companies to prove direct lithium extraction at only a tenth of commercial scale as recently as November 9, 2022, when it opened a 12 million dollar funding round covering 2 research topics on extracting lithium from geothermal brine. That is the same technology now running in Argentina, China and Germany at close to full commercial scale less than 4 years later. The funding round shows how new this shift is, from subsidized testing to real production.