In the world’s race for cleaner, faster, cheaper lithium, all eyes are on Argentina’s salt pans.

On a dusty plain in the mountains of northern Argentina, two-story-high black pipes fill a massive tank with brine sucked up from deep within the earth.

The brine contains lithium, a silvery-white metal that is essential for making electric car batteries and is in high demand as the world shifts to green energy. French mining company Eramet is trying out an innovative technique known as direct lithium extraction, or DLE, in a race for cleaner, faster and cheaper ways to produce the metal using less water.

Unlike traditional methods, there are no football-field-sized pools of brine where the lithium remains after the liquid evaporates in the sun.

DLE technology, which extracts the metal much more quickly, could play a crucial role in global production since 70% of the world’s lithium is found in brine, not rock or clay.

Eramet is being closely watched by rivals from the United States to Chile who are also working to market lithium carbonate. The company aims to pump its first ton of lithium carbonate in November and expand its production to 24,000 metric tons per year by mid-2025.

The $870 million project in the northern province of Salta puts Argentina, the world’s fourth-largest lithium producer, in the spotlight ahead of projects due to start operating in the country in the coming months from mining giant Rio Tinto, South Korea’s Posco and Chinese miners Zijin and Ganfeng.

Argentina’s new output is expected to double its capacity, narrowing the gap with Chile, Latin America’s biggest producer. Some analysts say Argentina could overtake Chile by the end of the decade even if obstacles remain.

The exact timing of the start-up of Eramet’s Centenario plant, which it jointly owns with Chinese nickel and steel giant Tsingshan, remains uncertain.

“It’s a complex plant,” Chief Executive Christel Boris said in an interview. “The challenge is always whether we can reach the rated capacity, and when?”

For more than a decade, Eramet, which produces manganese, nickel and mineral sands elsewhere, tried different techniques before choosing to develop a process largely based on its own.

The need to design the extraction method to suit specific brine deposits, each of which contains a particular concentration of lithium and other metals, is part of the complexity of DLE.

Joe Lowry, an industry consultant, said it would take some time to see if Eramet’s strategy would work. “The evidence for that will be the continued production of high-quality battery products, and it’s too early to say with any certainty that this will happen,” he said.

Lithium is faster

The first batch of brine will not be ready for direct extraction until August, engineers told Reuters last week, as dozens of workers in red thermal jackets inspected the plant.

Wild vicunas, similar to llamas, roam around the site at an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) a five-hour drive from the nearest town.

The DLE technology developed by Eramet relies on a specially designed material that absorbs lithium from the brine like a sponge and is placed inside a row of blue tanks, each big enough to hold an SUV. Impurities such as sodium chloride or table salt can then be largely washed away.

The material, called an adsorbent, works at room temperature, unlike some forms of molten lithium that can require heating, and produces 90% more lithium, compared with about 40% or 50% in evaporation ponds. The technology allows Eramet to produce a ton of lithium carbonate in a week, versus a year using conventional methods.

Eramet plans to pump the brine in a continuous cycle from 20 nearby wells, each 400 metres (1,312 feet) deep. But before that can happen, it must complete a crucial commissioning phase.

Pipe valves must open properly. Computers must synchronize with several thousand sensors. And the spacecraft-shaped vapor chamber must avoid temperature fluctuations.

“It’s going step by step, to make sure we can get to the next stage,” said engineer Soledad Gamarra. “There is an option to pause, but we don’t really want that to happen.”

The Eramet process aims to recycle 60% of its water, eventually rising to 80%, reflecting the industry’s goal of offsetting the controversy over the large amounts of water required for many types of rechargeable batteries, especially in arid regions. International Battery Metals, which is nearing the launch of its rechargeable batteries near Salt Lake City, Utah, aims to recycle more than 98% of its water.

Some environmentalists say the Eramet project is the latest threat to previously untouched salt flats.

“They are a perfect system of balance and life,” said Mara Pontano, an activist in Salta who represents indigenous communities.

Eramet will seek certification under the stringent standards of the Responsible Mining Assurance Initiative, and aims to reduce water and chemical use at a planned second plant, estimated to cost around $800 million.

“The second phase, in terms of technology, will be a big step forward,” Tsingshan South America President John Li said in an interview.

Tsingshan and Eramet will look for buyers in China and elsewhere in Asia, they said. Despite a lithium glut that has depressed prices and forced some miners to pull out, Burris said Eramet has a healthy profit margin, with current prices more than double its cash costs per tonne.

—Dina Beth Solomon and Ernest Scheider, Reuters

Lucilla Segal contributed to this report.