S.M. Gallagher, N.A. Chowdhury, Y. Khalid, Q. Da, J.S. Spangenberger
Argonne National Laboratory,
United States
Keywords: lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, techno-economic analysis
Summary:
Lithium is essential to U.S. economic and national security and is central to electronics and grid storage across the modern energy and technology landscape. We conducted a comprehensive techno-economic analysis of producing battery-grade lithium carbonate (LC) and lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) from multiple pathways: virgin feedstocks: brine, spodumene ore, and clay, as well as recycled lithiumion batteries. The assessment spans mining and extraction, refining unit operations, and established pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling routes, providing a transparent basis for comparing costs and key drivers. For brine resources, we modeled both conventional brine processing and direct lithium extraction (DLE), tracing steps through concentration, impurity removal, selective recovery, and conversion to LC or LHM. For hard rock spodumene, we included comminution, beneficiation, calcination, leaching, purification, and crystallization. Clay is treated as a virgin feedstock and analyzed via two alternative processing flowsheets, enabling side-by-side cost and risk comparisons for this emerging domestic source. For recycling, we covered pyrometallurgical routes producing an intermediate that is refined hydrometallurgically, and fully hydrometallurgical flows that process black mass through leaching, impurity control, and precipitation to LC or LHM. Our results indicate that brine-based routes, including DLE, are the lowest-cost options, with modeled costs of $3.40 to $6.20 per kg of LC or LHM under baseline assumptions. Ore-, and recycling-based routes exhibit wider cost ranges of $4.20 to $53.40 per kg, reflecting variability in capital intensity, feedstock pricing, and operating conditions. For ore routes, costs are particularly sensitive to the price of SC6.0 spodumene concentrate, calcination energy, and reagent consumption. For brines and DLE brine chemistry strongly influences performance. For clay, costs vary with the chosen technology, reagent balances, and energy requirements. Recycling economics hinge on capital and energy intensive processing steps. The study includes the influence of plant location on produced LC and LHM costs. We report baseline costs and sensitivity analyses to show how unit costs shift with key parameters. Differences between LC and LHM production are also captured, including additional conversion steps and reagent needs associated with hydroxide manufacturing. By comparing virgin and recycled pathways on a consistent, unit-operation basis, the analysis clarifies trade-offs among resource availability, capital intensity and operating flexibility. These insights support decision-making for competitive domestic manufacturing and investment and highlight where process improvements can most effectively reduce cost for LC and LHM.