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Direct lithium extraction (DLE) from geothermal brine combines geothermal energy production with a separate chemical recovery circuit. Hot, lithium-bearing fluid is pumped from a deep reservoir, its heat can generate electricity, and pretreatment plus a lithium-selective material removes dissolved lithium. The remaining brine is sent back to the geothermal reservoir. The exact equipment and chemistry vary by brine composition and project; DLE is a family of process designs, not one standardized machine.
At California’s Salton Sea resource area, the lithium is in hot reservoir fluid moving through bedrock roughly a mile below ground—not in the lake’s surface water. The distinction matters because the extraction system handles a concentrated geothermal brine stream while the geothermal plant continues to manage heat, minerals, corrosion, scaling and reinjection.
Where the lithium is and why geothermal brine is useful
Geothermal reservoirs contain hot water and dissolved salts under pressure. In the Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area, lithium is dissolved in that deep fluid. Production wells bring the fluid to the surface, where a geothermal facility can remove heat for power generation. A lithium-recovery plant then treats a brine stream after, or alongside, the heat-extraction stage.
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Geothermal brine is chemically challenging. It may contain high concentrations of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, silica, iron and other ions that can foul equipment or compete with lithium for binding sites. A practical DLE plant therefore begins by conditioning the brine before asking a sorbent, resin or electrochemical device to distinguish lithium from the other dissolved material.
The geothermal-brine lithium process, step by step
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1. Produce hot brine from the reservoir
Production wells lift geothermal fluid from the deep reservoir. At Salton Sea, the resource is in bedrock approximately one mile beneath the surface, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The fluid arrives hot, pressurized and laden with dissolved minerals. It is not water pumped from the Salton Sea itself.
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2. Recover useful heat
The hot fluid first supplies geothermal energy. A plant can transfer heat to a working fluid or use another turbine configuration to generate electricity. Removing heat lowers the brine temperature, which can make subsequent handling safer and can change the chemistry that controls scaling. The geothermal power operation and the lithium circuit must be designed together because temperature, pressure and residence time affect both.
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3. Pretreat the brine to remove interferents
Pretreatment removes substances that would clog equipment, consume reagents or reduce lithium selectivity. DOE’s example adds limestone so it reacts with silica and iron, producing solids that settle out. A California demonstration notice describes a different setup using calcium hydroxide before a resin-extraction step. These are examples rather than a universal recipe: the right reagent and separator depend on the particular brine.
Common unit operations can include chemical dosing, mixing, clarification, filtration and solids handling. Pretreatment is not the lithium-capture step itself; it prepares a more manageable liquid for that step and creates a solid by-product that must be controlled and disposed of or managed in accordance with the facility’s permits.
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4. Selectively capture dissolved lithium
The conditioned brine passes through a material or device that preferentially takes up lithium. DOE describes a possible circuit containing an absorbent, electrochemical treatment, electrodialysis, and a membrane or filter. In its adsorption example, aluminum- or titanium-oxide beads bind lithium from solution. Once loaded, the beads are separated from the brine, washed or chemically regenerated, and prepared for another cycle.
Other designs use lithium-selective ion-exchange resin beads. Resin chemistry, flow rate, temperature and competing ions determine how much lithium is captured and how often the medium must be regenerated. Electrochemical and membrane-assisted approaches use electric potential or selective transport rather than relying solely on a packed bed. The label DLE covers all of these approaches when they recover lithium directly from a fluid instead of evaporating the entire brine stream in large ponds.
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5. Strip lithium from the capture medium and make a product
Regeneration releases lithium into a smaller, more concentrated solution. Downstream purification and chemical conversion then produce a saleable compound. The CEC pilot report documents direct production of lithium carbonate from synthetic brine. Other project designs target lithium hydroxide; the desired product changes the polishing, concentration and conversion equipment.
“Lithium recovered” does not necessarily mean battery-grade material. Product quality depends on impurity removal, concentration, crystal formation, drying and analytical verification. A pilot that demonstrates capture or produces a carbonate sample still needs to show that the product can be made consistently at the required specification and cost.
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6. Return the treated brine and manage side streams
After lithium removal, the principal brine stream is routed back into the geothermal system. DOE describes reinjection into the reservoir, preserving pressure and avoiding discharge of the main brine volume to the surface. The 2020 California environmental notice describes post-extraction streams returning to the facility’s existing brine-processing system during its test configuration.
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Reinjection does not make every environmental question disappear. Operators still have to manage pretreatment solids, regeneration liquids, membranes, filters, emissions, well integrity and the chemistry of the reinjected fluid. The final design must demonstrate that the reservoir and wells can accept the returned stream without unacceptable scaling, plugging or pressure effects.
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How DLE capture technologies differ
There is no single best DLE technology for every geothermal brine. The meaningful comparison is the capture mechanism, the pretreatment required for that brine, the regeneration method, and the maturity and duration of the evidence.
| Approach | How lithium is captured | Important process questions | Evidence described in public sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adsorption with inorganic beads | Aluminum- or titanium-oxide beads selectively bind lithium; washing or regeneration releases it. | How quickly do the beads load and regenerate? How many cycles can they survive? Which competing ions require pretreatment? | DOE presents this as an example circuit in its geothermal FAQ; it is not identified as a universal commercial design. |
| Ion-exchange resin | Resin beads exchange or bind lithium ions as brine passes through a contactor. | What calcium, magnesium, silica or iron removal is needed? What are resin replacement frequency and regeneration-chemical requirements? | A California demonstration notice describes calcium-hydroxide pretreatment followed by lithium-selective resin on a geothermal-brine side stream. |
| Electrochemical, electrodialysis or membrane-assisted treatment | Electric potential, ion-selective transport or membranes separate lithium from other ions. | What power demand, membrane life, selectivity and concentration steps are required? How are fouling and concentrate streams handled? | DOE lists these as possible elements of a DLE recovery circuit; the source does not establish one standard configuration. |
A design that performs well with one brine can fail economically with another. High concentrations of divalent ions, silica or iron may increase chemical consumption and shorten the life of sorbents, resins, membranes and pumps. For that reason, a credible comparison should state the brine composition, pretreatment, cycle time, recovery, product quality and operating duration—not just a headline lithium-recovery percentage.
What happens to the brine after lithium removal?
The intended geothermal cycle is closed in the sense that the treated brine is reinjected rather than discharged as a waste stream. Reinjection supports reservoir pressure and allows geothermal operations to continue producing fluid. The brine may pass through additional cooling, filtration or conditioning before it reaches an injection well.
Some water is nevertheless consumed or moved within the plant. Evaporation, cleaning, chemical preparation, cooling, product conversion and handling of solids or regeneration streams can all affect a facility’s water balance. A statement that the main brine is reinjected should not be read as proof that a particular commercial plant has zero water consumption or zero environmental impact.
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What has been demonstrated—and what has not
Pilot production from synthetic brine
The CEC’s 2024 pilot-scale report page and its final project report describe a pilot skid that validated a DLE process using synthetic brine and produced lithium carbonate. Synthetic brine is useful for controlled testing, but it does not reproduce every problem encountered in a hot, corrosive geothermal well stream.
The report identifies sorbent lifetime as a continuing issue because replacing sorbent is a significant operating cost. It recommends extended operation at an actual geothermal site to evaluate materials and components. Therefore, the result supports “pilot validation with synthetic brine,” not a claim of sustained commercial operation on geothermal brine.
Field-side-stream demonstration
A California environmental notice describes a demonstration using pretreatment and lithium-selective resin beads on a side stream of geothermal brine. After extraction, the streams were routed back to the existing brine-processing system for the test. That documentation establishes a pilot configuration; it does not establish long-run commercial performance, product economics or universal environmental outcomes.
Proposed lithium-hydroxide project
DOE’s Loan Programs Office announced a conditional commitment for Project ATLiS in Imperial County, California. The proposed facility would use DLE to recover lithium from geothermal brine and produce lithium hydroxide. “Conditional commitment” means financing remained subject to technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions before definitive documents and funding. It is not evidence that the facility was already operating.
Water use and environmental context
DOE’s lithium page, updated September 28, 2026, reports that a DOE-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory resource assessment found DLE requires 99% less water per ton of lithium than other lithium-mining processes. This is an agency-reported comparison from an assessment; it is not a measured universal rate for every DLE plant, brine chemistry or product specification.
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DOE’s Geothermal FAQs, accessed October 13, 2026, also says commercial-scale DLE water consumption is currently difficult to estimate because designs and operating data are insufficient. Demonstration facilities need transparent, ongoing reporting before the water implications of large-scale deployment can be established. The 99% figure and this uncertainty belong together: the comparison indicates potential, while project-specific water accounting remains necessary.
The same FAQ reports that geothermal power plants in the Salton Sea region use about 16 acre-feet of water per year per megawatt of capacity and do not use water from the Salton Sea itself or change the lake’s level through their operations. That figure describes geothermal power plants, not a complete commercial DLE water-use estimate. Lithium recovery adds its own chemical, cleaning and product-processing requirements that must be measured separately.
How to assess a geothermal-brine lithium claim
When a developer announces a new project or a test result, check the following details before treating it as proof of commercial production:
- Feedstock: Was the test run on synthetic brine, a laboratory sample, a geothermal side stream or continuous full-scale production fluid?
- Duration: Was the result a short campaign, or did the system operate for enough cycles to reveal sorbent, resin, membrane and pump degradation?
- Pretreatment: Which minerals were removed, with what chemicals, and what happened to the resulting solids?
- Recovery definition: Does the reported percentage mean lithium captured from the feed, lithium recovered after regeneration, or finished product meeting a specification?
- Product: Was lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide or another intermediate produced, and was its purity independently verified?
- Water balance: How much water was consumed for cooling, cleaning, reagent preparation and product conversion, in addition to the reinjected brine?
- Brine fate: Are treated streams reinjected, returned to an existing processing system or discharged under a permit?
- Project status: Is the facility operating, in a field pilot, proposed, or backed only by conditional financing?
Why scaling up is difficult
Laboratory selectivity does not automatically translate into a profitable plant. A commercial system must keep contactors, valves, heat exchangers, filters and injection wells operating while exposed to hot, mineral-rich fluid. Sorbent or resin replacement can become a major cost if capacity declines after repeated cycles. Pretreatment consumes chemicals and creates solids; regeneration creates additional liquid streams; and every extra separation step adds pumps, controls and maintenance.
Geothermal and lithium operations also have different optimization goals. Power generation favors reliable heat and fluid flow, while lithium recovery favors the residence time, temperature and chemistry that maximize selective capture. A workable integrated design must preserve geothermal output while recovering enough lithium at a product quality and cost that justify the added equipment.
The most useful evidence therefore combines a mass balance, water balance, energy demand, product assay, cycle-life data and long-duration field operation. A single batch of lithium carbonate or a successful short pilot answers whether a chemistry can work under selected conditions; it does not answer whether the whole system can run continuously for years.
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