直接リチウム抽出法(DLE)は持続可能かつ効率的なリチウム生産をもたらし、各国のサプライチェーンセキュリティを高めることで、大きな成長を遂げています。商用化されている吸着技術とともに、イオン交換法、溶媒抽出法、膜技術、電気化学的プロセスも使用されるようになり、地熱塩水や油田塩水からの抽出の機会も創出しています。IDTechExでは、2036年までの10年間予測を通じて、DLEの技術、有力企業、プロジェクト、規制や、それらが世界のリチウム供給に与える影響を分析しています。
「直接リチウム抽出法(DLE) 2026-2036年」は以下の情報を提供します
■ 世界のリチウム需要の最新分析
- 炭酸リチウムの現物価格、応用分野、材料需要、リチウムイオン電池市場の成長に関するIDTechExの見通しなど
■ 世界のリチウム供給の徹底分析
- 硬岩、塩水、堆積物からのリチウム生産・加工、直接リチウム抽出法(DLE)採用の主要促進要因
■ 地域別リチウム市場
- リチウム埋蔵量と生産データ、世界各地の重要規制など
■ 各種パラメータに基づくDLE技術の包括的分析とベンチマーク評価
- 各種パラメータ:技術成熟度、水とエネルギーの消費を通じた持続可能性、土地要件、設備投資と運用コスト、試薬の使用量、材料要件、リチウム回収率、リチウム選択性など
- 各技術の強み、弱み、機会、潜在的脅威を評価
■ 吸着法、イオン交換法、溶媒抽出法、膜技術、電気化学技術の各DLE技術での技術・プロジェクト開発を行う有力企業の最新情報
- 各社の商用化状況、パートナーシップとビジネスモデル、中核技術イノベーション、生産タイムライン、現場ごとの特徴に関する情報など
■ DLE金融状況の包括的な最新情報
- 新規資金調達、買収、合弁事業、リチウムのオフテイク契約など
■ DLE生産量(単位:kt LCE(炭酸リチウム換算))と市場規模(単位:10億ドル)の10年間詳細予測
- 技術別(吸着法、イオン交換法、溶媒抽出法、膜技術、電気化学技術)
- 塩水の種類別(大陸性、地熱、油田)
- 地域別(南米、北米、欧州、中国)
- 国別(アルゼンチン、ボリビア、チリ、米国、カナダ、英国、ドイツ、フランス、中国)
■ DLE大手17社の企業概要
- 材料サプライヤー、プロセス開発企業、DLEに特化した採掘企業など
IDTechEx's report "Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" provides a deep-dive into global lithium production and the fast-growing direct lithium extraction (DLE) landscape. This includes critical insights into technologies, key project data, and granular 10-year forecasts which detail how the emergence of DLE will grow the lithium market into one valued at US$52 billion dollars by 2036.
Sources of lithium production across the Americas, Europe, and China, Source: IDTechEx
What is driving the growth of DLE?
The rapid expansion of the li-ion battery market for electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems (BESS) has led to surging lithium demand. Conventional lithium extraction involves either the mining of hard rock minerals or evaporation of lithium-rich brines. However, such resources are concentrated in just a few regions (hard rock minerals in China and Australia; brines in China and the Lithium Triangle of Argentina, Bolivia, & Chile), and both methods have shortcomings that make them difficult to scale.
For one, brine evaporation processes can require 12-24 months to arrive at a final product, and they achieve low lithium recovery rates of 40-60%. They also require specific brine compositions and the right land and climate for evaporation ponds. Meanwhile, hard rock lithium is less prevalent in nature and mining comes with much greater environmental impacts.
The emergence of DLE technology, which allows for more selective lithium extraction from brines without evaporation, opens new opportunities for global production. DLE technologies can extract lithium from brines in just hours or days due to their selectivity, creating far more market flexibility to closely match lithium supply with demand. DLE also represents a more sustainable production pathway, bypassing the land and water requirements of conventional methods while achieving over 80% lithium recovery. As sustainability becomes more crucial across the battery supply chain, this will further drive investment into DLE.
The selectivity of DLE technology enables utilization of wide-ranging brines with lower lithium concentrations or more contaminants, including geothermal and oilfield brines. With more brines now suitable for extraction, and without any specific climate requirements, DLE will allow more regions to produce lithium domestically. This will help localize and secure battery supply chains, especially in areas that do not have meaningful lithium production. DLE has already gained significant investment in Europe and North America to make use of their geothermal and oilfield brines respectively. IDTechEx's "Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" report expects the USA to become a leading DLE market by 2036.
What are the key DLE technologies?
DLE features a diverse technological landscape, with six major technology types at various stages of development. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses that make them suited to certain brine types or process conditions. Given that no two brines are identical, multiple technologies will establish a place within the market.
Direct lithium extraction technology types, Source: IDTechEx
Adsorption DLE is currently the most mature and well-understood of them all. These processes use aluminium-based sorbents to capture lithium from brines, which is then released into an eluate by desorption using water. Adsorption makes up the bulk of current DLE production, with commercial projects already running in Argentina and China, operated by players such as Rio Tinto and Eramet.
However, the remaining technologies are quickly progressing to commercialization, with most already at demonstration scale and with commercialization plans in the coming years. Their adoption will be driven by their continuing maturation as well as their greater sustainability and lithium selectivity compared to adsorption. For example, ion exchange DLE uses a similar sorption mechanism to adsorption but where acids are used for desorption. This allows for exploitation of very poor brines with under 100 mg/L lithium, which is the case for many geothermal or oilfield brines. Solvent extraction DLE can also make use of low-quality brines while requiring less water and energy input than other processes.
There remain challenges to the full-scale commercialization of these DLE technologies. They must be mature and low risk in order to gain buy-in from resource companies at large. These technologies can also suffer from high CAPEX, while their performance relies on the development of bespoke materials such as sorbents, solvents, and membranes. However, technological progress is accelerating and many new DLE projects have been announced for the coming decade, highlighting the shift that is coming to the lithium market.
"Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" brings together all of the above trends and more. IDTechEx's report considers key performance, technoeconomic, regulatory, and other market factors in its analysis. Key players and their projects are benchmarked across each technology type.
10-year granular forecasts of the global lithium market are provided for production quantities (kt LCE) and market value (US$ billion) by source. Sources include brine DLE, brine evaporation, hard rock mining, and sedimentary. 10-year forecasts are also provided of the DLE market in terms of production quantities (kt LCE) and market value (US$ billion) by technology, brine type, and location. Technologies include adsorption, ion exchange, solvent extraction, membranes, and electrochemical. Brine types include continental, geothermal, and oilfield. Locations include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and China.
Access to 17 company profiles, including material suppliers, process developers, and mining companies, provide greater insight into the market.