Modeling freshwater use for direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines in the Salton Sea
- 1Penn State University
- 2Penn State
Abstract
Global lithium demand is projected to more than double by 2035, to about 715 kt per year
(3.8 Mt LCE per year) under the IEA Stated Policies Scenario, intensifying the need for
new, sustainable extraction routes. Direct lithium extraction (DLE) from geothermal brines
is of particular interest because co-location with closed-loop geothermal operations avoids
the large land footprint of evaporitic ponds and the carbon intensity of hard-rock mining.
The Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area (SS-KGRA) hosts geothermal operations
with co-located pilot-scale DLE facilities, making it among the advanced regions for
geothermal lithium extraction. Though these operations are expected to reduce land and
carbon intensity, they require freshwater inputs across multiple unit operations; this demand
has been reported only as facility-wide aggregates, without process-level resolution, despite
potential US operations existing in an arid region constrained by agricultural water use.
Existing estimates do not track the internal fate of process water, which determines the net
volume drawn from external sources. Herein, we present LiHydroSim, a process-based model
that translates publicly available process descriptions into a facility-level freshwater balance
through a three-layer architecture separating gross unit-operation demand, internal
recovery, and net external supply. Applied to a representative adsorption-based facility
processing 7000 gallons per minute of geothermal brine, the model estimates net external
freshwater demand of 1719 acre-feet per year (152 m3
t
−1
lithium carbonate equivalent
(LCE); 0.12 AF/t LCE), below the 189–355 m3
t
−1 LCE (0.15–0.29 AF/t LCE) reported by
Salton Sea developers, consistent with auxiliary demands outside the process boundary. The
eluant for lithium elution dominates the water balance, accounting for 92% of gross internal
process-water demand, while internal recycling offsets roughly one third of that gross
demand. Total demand depends mainly on eluant volume: across two patent-specified
operating modes, it ranges from 870 to 1719 acre-feet per year.
Related
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- Comparing DNA extraction protocols for freshwater prokaryotic communities: impacts on yield and microbial profiling
- A novel integrated workflow for deep geothermal reservoir characterization using core data, optimized coupled petrophysical–seismic modeling, and machine learning: A case study from the SW Paris Basin, France
- Modeling freshwater inflow to a tropical estuary using stochastic and neural-network approaches under contrasting hydroclimatic conditions in Brazil.
BibTeX
@article{gunawardhana2026modeling,
title = {{Modeling freshwater use for direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines in the Salton Sea}},
author = {Lakshani Gunawardhana and Margaret M Busse},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/aeb148},
url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aeb148},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Modeling freshwater use for direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines in the Salton Sea
AU - Lakshani Gunawardhana
AU - Margaret M Busse
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/07
JO - Environmental Research Letters
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/aeb148
UR - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aeb148
AB - Global lithium demand is projected to more than double by 2035, to about 715 kt per year
(3.8 Mt LCE per year) under the IEA Stated Policies Scenario, intensifying the need for
new, sustainable extraction routes. Direct lithium extraction (DLE) from geothermal brines
is of particular interest because co-location with closed-loop geothermal operations avoids
the large land footprint of evaporitic ponds and the carbon intensity of hard-rock mining.
The Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area (SS-KGRA) hosts geothermal operations
with co-located pilot-scale DLE facilities, making it among the advanced regions for
geothermal lithium extraction. Though these operations are expected to reduce land and
carbon intensity, they require freshwater inputs across multiple unit operations; this demand
has been reported only as facility-wide aggregates, without process-level resolution, despite
potential US operations existing in an arid region constrained by agricultural water use.
Existing estimates do not track the internal fate of process water, which determines the net
volume drawn from external sources. Herein, we present LiHydroSim, a process-based model
that translates publicly available process descriptions into a facility-level freshwater balance
through a three-layer architecture separating gross unit-operation demand, internal
recovery, and net external supply. Applied to a representative adsorption-based facility
processing 7000 gallons per minute of geothermal brine, the model estimates net external
freshwater demand of 1719 acre-feet per year (152 m3
t
−1
lithium carbonate equivalent
(LCE); 0.12 AF/t LCE), below the 189–355 m3
t
−1 LCE (0.15–0.29 AF/t LCE) reported by
Salton Sea developers, consistent with auxiliary demands outside the process boundary. The
eluant for lithium elution dominates the water balance, accounting for 92% of gross internal
process-water demand, while internal recycling offsets roughly one third of that gross
demand. Total demand depends mainly on eluant volume: across two patent-specified
operating modes, it ranges from 870 to 1719 acre-feet per year.
SN - 1748-9326
ER -