US-based researchers have characterized for the first time two types of surface water in the hyperarid salars that contain much of the world’s lithium deposits.

Weeefiner and Sensmet are developing a solution that will be able to provide water treatment to end-of-life mining sites and selectively recover critical minerals and rare earth metals.

The all-share business combination creates a giant lithium firm with forecasted production capacity of 248,000 tonnes of LCE a year.

It has partnered up with Canada’s Li-Cycle to convert an old lead refinery in Italy into a facility to recover key metals from batteries.