Abstract
Lithium (Li) demand is projected to increase shortly due to vehicle electrification, especially light-duty vehicles for personal transport. Although lithium is abundant on the surface of the earth, lithium is mainly extracted from salt-lake brines. New production routes could become available with the advancements of lithium recovery technologies from low-concentration brines, such as seawater and produced water from the oil and gas industry. In the case of produced water from the oil and gas industry, lithium recovery could be coupled with removing boron (B), a chemical with environmental limitations in water concentration for disposal or human consumption. In this case, lithium could bring revenue for the process while solving the issues of boron concentration in disposed or consumed produced water. This study developed a qualitative bottleneck analysis methodology based on experts’ opinions to analyze direct lithium and boron recovery technologies. In the results, experts were able to group 62 variables into 8 classes: technical parameters, fluid parameters, decision variables, quantification variables, and impact variables. In the bottleneck analysis, 5 technical risk pathways have been identified: the microemulsion issue, the concentration issue, the efficiency issue, the market issue and, finally, the environmental legislation issue.
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Source: Adapted from Cirillo et al. (2021)
Source: Adapted from Cirillo et al. (2021)
Source: Adapted from Zavahir et al. (2021)
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The authors wish to thank all who assisted in conducting this work.
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We gratefully acknowledge support of the RCGI—Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation, hosted by the University of São Paulo (USP) and sponsored by FAPESP—São Paulo Research Foundation (2014/50279-4 and 2020/15230-5), Petronas Petróleo Brasil LTDA, and the strategic importance of the support given by ANP (Brazil’s National Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency) through the R&D levy regulation. COR thanks CNPq for their support through process 308909/2021-6.
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Conceptualization, PGM, COR, CAON; methodology, PGM, COR; formal analysis, PGM, COR, CAON; investigation, PGM, COR, CAON; resources, CAON; data curation, PGM; writing—original draft preparation, PGM; writing—review and editing, PGM, COR, CAON; visualization, PGM; supervision, PGM, COR, CAON; project administration, PGM, COR, CAON; funding acquisition, COR, CAON. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.”
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Appendix
Appendix
See Tables 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 and Figs. 14 and 15.
Final influence diagram, with color-coded variables and their links
Final weighted influence diagram, showing links with 4 and 5 average weights, with color-coded variables and their links
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Machado, P.G., de Olivera Ribeiro, C. & Oller do Nascimento, C.A. Bottleneck analysis of lithium and boron recovery technologies from oil and gas produced water: a conceptual approach. Int J Energ Water Res 7, 465–486 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42108-023-00261-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42108-023-00261-0