Zero Emissions Lithium Extraction from Underground Reservoirs

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Heavy oil and oil sands resources are traditionally produced for viscous oils. In these recovery processes, high temperature steam injection lowers the oil's viscosity so that it can be produced to surface. However, steam generation from natural gas combustion yields large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) rendering oil sands bitumen among the dirtiest oil globally. A paradigm shift is required to derive clean valuable products from underground resources (heavy oil and oil sands resources, tight shale resources, and aquifer systems). This is due to GHG emissions of extraction and processing of oil sands resources but also the emissions of transportation and end-use combustion of the oil products. The shift required is to re-value the resource as a source of other products that are both zero-emission during extraction and also at end use. In the proposed research, novel extraction processes will be discovered, designed, and developed to produce lithium from underground resources with the constraint that the extraction process has net zero emissions. Lithium is an essential element for energy storage systems unlocking more renewable energy use. Canada possesses huge amounts of lithium stored in underground brine reservoirs which could yield huge value for Canada. Evidence exists that lithium could be produced from brines within current established resources where many wells already exist: in-situ thermal oil sands operations raise the lithium concentration in the produced water by up to 100 times. To minimize the energy required, the amount of pumping and handling of brine must be minimized. Thus, a process requirement would be to avoid large brine handling by leaving the brine in the ground - the process would be in-situ lithium extraction with minimal material transport to/from the reservoir. The required research includes materials science for in-well lithium extraction using a horizontal well mounted electrochemical reactor. The key research questions are on the electrode materials as well as dealing with other metals in the water. The research program will consist of discovery-level experiments (electrochemical cells and electrode materials), integrated modelling (DFT for electrode material selection, transport phenomena/flow for reactor design, and reservoir simulation for reservoir and overall process management), process optimization, and eventual field-scale experiments to yield a new class of lithium extraction technologies for oil sands resources. The outcomes from the proposed research will diversify products from underground resources as well as benefit Canada in terms of materials enabling clean energy extraction, use, and storage. A new subdiscipline, electrochemical reservoir engineering, will emerge from the proposed research. In this project, 11 HQP (3 PhD, 2 MSc, 2 PDF, and 4 BSc) will be trained.