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News — EL PASO, Texas (Feb. 6, 2024) – A group of researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso are behind an emerging lithium extraction technology that won the inaugural Hill Prize from the Texas Academies of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST) on Monday. The $500,000 in prize funds will support a joint research effort by Alma Energy and UTEP to extract lithium from hydrothermal waters.

“If this technology succeeds, it would be a really massive breakthrough in environmentally friendly lithium extraction,” said Benjamin Brunner, Ph.D., the co-inventor of the technology and an associate professor of earth, environmental and resource sciences at UTEP. “This prize will go a long way towards supporting our research.”

TAMEST is an Austin-based organization that promotes research and science efforts throughout Texas. The Hill Prize, awarded for the first time this year at their annual conference, was given to researchers undertaking high-risk, high-reward projects in five categories: medicine, engineering, biological sciences, physical sciences and technology. 

The winner of the Hill Technology Prize is Hermann Lebit, P.h.D, the principal at Alma Energy, an energy company that focuses on green technologies. Lebit represents a group that includes several UTEP researchers, including Brunner, Eva Deemer, Ph.D., interim director of the Center for Inland Desalination Systems, Jose Leobardo Bañuelos, Ph.D, associate professor of physics, and Mark Engle, Ph.D., professor of earth, environmental and resource sciences.

The group’s research centers on hydrothermal water, underground water that is extremely hot and can be used to produce energy. Some sources of hydrothermal water throughout the world are also rich in lithium, a mineral that is essential to a number of clean energy technologies, such as batteries for electric vehicles. Lithium is important for the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy, Brunner said, but its extraction is not currently an environmentally-friendly process.

The technology under development by the team centers on electrodialysis, a scientific process that uses a membrane to filter out certain elements from water. The team is developing a system that would allow lithium to pass through the membrane while keeping out other elements like sodium and chloride.

Brunner explained that if successful, the project would fulfill two purposes: extracting usable lithium and generating energy from hydrothermal waters to power the operations. The water that is extracted could be pumped back into the ground or cleaned and used for other purposes. Moreover, the process of extracting the lithium under this new method may help remove carbon dioxide from the surrounding environment. The membrane system could also potentially be used to clean briny water derived from oil and gas production. 

Moving forward, Alma Energy will identify locations in Texas that may contain underground hot water sources with lithium while the UTEP team will further develop the membrane technology.

“This prize is a fantastic recognition of the hard work of an interdisciplinary team of researchers here at UTEP in partnership with industry,” said Robert Kirken, Ph.D., dean of the College of Science. “I look forward to seeing what they achieve.”

About The University of Texas at El Paso

The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 172 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.