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: [email protected]  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)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.