Georgia SME Section

ABSTRACT:  Lithium has become a critical material for renewable energy, energy storage systems, nuclear technologies, and glass/ceramics. Due to rapidly increasing demands for lithium and global reserves that are not well characterized, the future resource availability for lithium remains undefined. In this talk, geological availability of lithium resources and extraction processes of lithium from primary sources (minerals/clays and brines) and secondary sources (industrial wastes) will be discussed from technical and environmental perspectives. The experimental results of laboratory-scale recovery processes which were innovated in our research group to recover lithium from low-grade primary resources (e.g., The Great Salt Lake) and secondary resources (end-of-life lithium-ion batteries), will also be discussed.

  BIOGRAPHY:  York Smith is an assistant professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Utah. Growing up in Northern Michigan, his love for snow covered-peaks and open spaces led him out west to the University of Nevada, Reno where he obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering. Given his only criterion is a place to live with decent skiing, he then moved to the University of Utah where he obtained his Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering. After a postdoctoral research appointment from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Smith joined the faculty at the University of Utah. Smith's general research interests include chemical metallurgy, interfacial phenomena, and electrochemistry. His present research projects include lithium resources and extraction, and nonferrous metal recycling.