LITHIUM TRIANGLE

LITHIUM TRIANGLE

Subject: Economy

Context : India, through a newly-floated state-owned company, inked a pact with an Argentine firm mid-last year to jointly prospect lithium in the South American country that has the third largest reserves of the silver-white alkali metal — a crucial building block of the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.

Concept:

• The new company, Khanij Bidesh India Ltd — incorporated in August, 2019 by three state-owned companies, NALCO, Hindustan Copper and Mineral Exploration Ltd, with a specific mandate to acquire strategic mineral assets such as lithium and cobalt abroad — is also learnt to be exploring options in Chile and Bolivia, two other top lithium-producing countries.

Lithium Triangle

• Lithium Triangle is an intersection of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, known for high quality salt flats.
• Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, Salar de Atacama in Chile and Salar de Arizaro in Argentina contains over 45%of known global lithium reserves.
• Beneath Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat lies the world’s greatest lithium deposits.
• Bolivia, one of South America’s poorest countries, envisions development by harvesting lithium on an industrial scale from underground saltwater brines.
• It can be mined from rock or processed from brine.
• Lithium dissolved in underground saline aquifers called “brine”, pumped to surface by wells and then allowed to evaporate in vast knee-deep ponds.

About Lithium

• Lithium is a chemical element with symbol Li and atomic number 3.
• It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal.
• Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element.
• Lithium is highly reactive and flammable, and is stored in mineral oil.
• It never occurs freely in nature, but only in (usually ionic) compounds, such as pegmatitic minerals, which were once the main source of lithium.
• Due to its solubility as an ion, it is present in ocean water and is commonly obtained from brines.
• Lithium metal is isolated electrolytically from a mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride.

Applications

• Lithium and its compounds have several industrial applications, including heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium grease lubricants, flux additives for iron, steel and aluminium production, lithium batteries, and lithium-ion batteries.
• It works with other elements, drugs, enzymes, hormones, vitamins, and growth factors in the body in many different ways. People use it for medicine.
• Lithium salts have proven to be useful as a mood-stabilizing drug in the treatment of bipolar disorder in humans.