S9E4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert

with 🎙️ Jim Rieke - VP of Process Engineering at Veolia Water Technologies 

💧 Veolia Water Technologies specializes in water treatment solutions while providing a complete range of services for industrial & public authorities

What we covered:

👷 How HPD onboards all its hires through its service and commissioning groups and how that's the best learning experience to Veolia Water Technologies' portfolio 

🤝 How the milestone Naraha Lithium Refinery reference started through a collaboration between Orocobre (now, Allkem) and HPD and what was the step by step road to success 

🚢 What's the magic that turns Lithium Carbonate in South America into Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate in Japan 

🧩 How there might be standard building blocks but how every lithium carbonate is slightly different and hence requires a tailor-made lithium refining process 

🏭 Where do impurities appear in a lithium refinery process and how to remove them to guarantee a battery-grade output 

🧰 How extracting lithium from clay is still a very new process and what it changes in the lithium refinery set up 

🛠️ How Veolia Water Technologies' holistic approach is a key differentiator in the development of a lithium refinery 

🌍 How geopolitics and government incentives play a role in the economics of a lithium refinery 

👰 How the newly wed SUEZ and Veolia offer an even broader portfolio of complimentary technologies to better serve the lithium market 

📈 How DLE "suddenly" makes much more lithium available and how HPD's lithium refinery process copes with the source's specificities 

♻️ How batter-grade lithium is just one of the outputs of a lithium refinery: Veolia Water Technologies' expertise also allows to valorize several more by-products along the way 

💰 How Veolia Water Technologies' involvement in projects can help get junior lithium companies get financed as a valuable reference partner 

🗺️ Building a Lithium Refinery step by step; leaching, evaporation, crystallization, ion exchange: the lithium refinery keywords; lithium refining in the broader scheme of the EV battery vertical; turning sodium sulfate into sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid; empowering circularity... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Jim on Linkedin

🔗 Check Veolia's website

➡️ Check out the entire article on How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

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