A new one‑step, water‑, acid‑, and alkali‑free method for extracting high‑purity lithium from spodumene ore has the potential to transform critical metal processing and enhance renewable energy supply chains. The study is published in Science Advances.

As the demand for lithium continues to rise, particularly for use in electric cars, smartphones and power storage, current extraction methods are struggling to keep pace. Extracting lithium from salty water is a lengthy process, and traditional methods that use heat and chemicals to extract lithium from rock produce significant amounts of harmful waste.

Researchers led by James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, have developed a faster and cleaner method using flash Joule heating (FJH). This technique rapidly heats materials to thousands of degrees within milliseconds and works in conjunction with chlorine gas, exposing the rock to intense heat and chlorine gas, they can quickly convert spodumene ore into usable lithium.

“This method reimagines how to harvest lithium from its most abundant ore, spodumene, a material that is abundant in the U.S.,” said Tour, co‑corresponding author of the study. “We can leapfrog monthslong water evaporation pools and dayslong acid leaching and then directly generate lithium chloride.”

Hypothesis, experiments and the novelty of approach

Guided by thermodynamic calculations, the researchers exposed α‑spodumene, a naturally occurring hard‑rock lithium mineral, to FJH and chlorine gas. This one‑step process eliminates the need for the traditional multistep acid roasting method, allowing lithium to be extracted directly as lithium chloride.

With a flash of electrical current, the mineral shifted from its stable α‑phase to the high temperature‑accessed β‑phase, making lithium available for reaction with chlorine gas. The lithium then vaporized as lithium chloride, while aluminum and silicon compounds were left behind. All of this was complete within seconds.

“Present techniques rely on multistep, chemically intensive treatments,” said study co‑corresponding author Yufeng Zhao, an associate professor of physics at Corban University and visiting professor at Rice. “The unique aspect of this method is the combination of rapid, uniform heating and favorable thermodynamics, which together enable practical and selective extraction.”

Traditional methods, from acid roasting to brine evaporation, simply weren’t designed for ultrafast separation, said Shichen Xu, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Rice.

“Our controlled, rapid‑heating approach overcomes kinetic barriers that have hindered single‑step extraction for decades,” Xu said.

Findings and broader significance

The researchers achieved nearly instantaneous lithium extraction from spodumene, producing lithium chloride with 97% purity and 94% recovery, significantly outperforming traditional methods that can take days to months.

“This method paves the way for local, small‑footprint lithium processing units or large‑scale units for massive waste mining operations,” said Justin Sharp, co‑first author and research assistant. “It’s a real paradigm shift. We can now envision battery‑grade lithium production without acids, without large waste outputs and without waiting weeks.”

Additionally, a startup from Tour’s lab, Flash Metals U.S., is already scaling this technology for metals extraction from waste.

“They would be able to rapidly implement this method into their production line once their pilot plant begins operation early next year,” Sharp said.

Environmentally, the elimination of acid and alkali significantly reduces waste burden. Economically, shorter processing times and simpler infrastructure could lower costs and decentralize lithium supply. Academically, the work demonstrates the rapid, acid‑free extraction of lithium from natural ore, raising possibilities for applying FJH and chlorine gas to other strategic minerals.

Co‑authors of the study include Rice’s Alex Lathem, Qiming Liu, Lucas Eddy, Weiqiang Chen, Karla Silva, Shihui Chen, Bowen Li, Tengda Si, Jaeho Shin, Chi Hun Choi, Yimo Han, Kai Gong and Boris Yakobson, along with Yufeng Zhao from Corban University.

From large technology corporations to startups, from computer science students to indie developers, using git services is as common as opening a word document is for most of the rest of us. Git services are online repositories, indispensable in the IT industry, that manage and store projects that may contain sensitive information or trade secrets such as emerging artificial intelligence models.

However, this makes git services vulnerable to frequent cybersecurity threats. There is also the risk of malicious code being inserted into existing projects without the developer’s knowledge.

University of Sydney researchers are part of a team that have developed end-to-end encryption that can be deployed to protect git services. The encryption is compatible with existing git platforms such as Github and Bitbucket. When it is deployed, the researchers say, it will align seamlessly for storage and the time it takes for data to be synchronized among devices and git servers.

Initial testing on existing git services and public repositories (data sources available for researchers to test algorithms) has been successful.

“Privacy and security of software code has long been a concern for industry and individual users that rely on git services,” said one of the lead developers Associate Professor Qiang Tang, from the School of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering. “Just like we want our messages to be private and safe, the IT industry also wants their code to be protected. End-to-end encryption is currently the gold standard to protect data.”

End-to-End encryption works by securing data from start to finish, meaning the data sent is protected from the source to the destination, even if the service platform is hacked. It is currently used in messaging services such as WhatsApp.

The researchers say the threat of security breaches to git services is becoming more commonplace. Earlier in the year cryptocurrency exchange CoinBase was a target. In 2022 Okta had source code stolen.

But Associate Professor Tang says current efforts on git security are not strong enough and with large overheads, which means when a significant amount of computational resources such as processing time, bandwidth, or storage is being used.

The researchers hope to introduce the code to git services for widespread use or intend to make it open source. The results will be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in October.

Collaborator Moti Yung, distinguished research scientist from Google, said that this was an excellent opportunity to protect the git services system and its users.

“The evolution of computing ecosystems always start with a new utility designed for trusted entities: the internet, the mobile networks, chat apps, and so on.

“Therefore, due to these utilities maturing and expanding, one has then to deal with less trusted and malicious players within the ecosystem. git services, enabling collaborations and version control among participants also started without thoroughly taking care of potential bad players, and the system proposed now is a necessary step to its maturity.”

Creating the security box for the world’s code and the rising demand for end- to-end security online

Imagine git services as a giant word document where countless people can write, edit and update content, but for computer code.

“What makes git services such as Github indispensable is their ability to host a large number of collaborators working on the same coding project at the same time, without losing any efficiency,” said Associate Professor Tang. “However, this advantage is also an obstacle that prevented git services from getting end-to-end encryption.”

When you use a messaging service, the content or text remains relatively unchanged, or the edits will be very minor.

But in GitHub, countless lines of code are being written, edited and updated constantly at a such a rapid rate, standard end-to-end encryption cannot keep up. It would constantly need to refresh to encrypt new versions.

“It’s a balancing act—keep the code safe but not where it impacts the user’s computer so much that it becomes a hindrance,” Tang added.

The research team was able to achieve this balance with a tradeoff—by using only small bits of computational power at a time to significantly reduce the level of communication and storage needed. Specifically, using character-level encryption where only edits are treated as new data to be encrypted and appended (added to an existing data collection). In this way, the pressure on computational resources becomes minimal.

Another way of putting it is if you removed a word from a sentence in a document, the code would recognize that and encrypt the change, instead of encrypting the entire document.

By doing this, it would save a large amount of bandwidth and storage otherwise used on each entire new version of the code.

Co-author Dr. Ya-Nan Li from the University of Sydney said another challenge was to identify the necessary security requirements, which at times could be subtle. For example, when to enable the tracking and public verification of the source of all edits.

“With addressing this issue, it leaves the git server vulnerable to the potential injection of malicious code and sometimes can even directly hinder confidentiality,” said Dr. Li.

I’ve tested over a dozen pet cameras, and they are not all created equal. A pet camera sets itself apart from a regular indoor security camera with special, pet-related features like treat tossing or interactive two-way audio. Each usually has a subscription service, where you can review pet footage historically and get alerts when things seem amiss, like odd behavior or continuous barking or meowing.

At an already super-affordable price, this Petcube camera has 360 PTZ rotation capabilities (it can not only rotate horizontally, but vertically as well for full coverage), super clear 1080p HD resolution, the ability to digitally zoom eight times, two-way audio to speak and hear your pet, and night vision. It’s already super affordable at its usual $53, but for Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, it’s only $38, a crazy-good price for a pet camera of this caliber.

Although I love (and highly recommend) this camera, the Petcube Cam 360 suffers from one of the pitfalls I have with the rest of the brand’s lineup—the features are seriously limited if you don’t want to pay for Petcube’s upgraded Care plan (which starts at $4 a month). You need to subscribe to get the full benefit of the luxury pet camera; with the plan, you’ll get video storage capabilities, automatic pet detection, and automatic video recording capabilities. The price point for the subscription plan is one of the lowest I’ve seen while testing similar models, and I don’t think I’d be able to go on vacation with peace of mind again without the extra plan. (At less than I spend on a cup of coffee, I find the subscription plan to be really worth it.)

There’s an optional mounting that requires some tools, so setup is a bit tricky. (You’ll want to make sure it’s anchored since it needs to be stable while rotating.) The camera feed rotates smoothly without much lag, and because of the wide fish-eye lens and complete panning abilities, I was able to clearly see more of the room I was monitoring than the majority of other cameras I’ve tested.

There’s a bit of inherent risk when having indoor security cameras in your home, and with the camera’s new privacy mode, you can easily turn off the camera lens for even more security while you’re at home so that it’s not catching anything that you don’t want it to.

Petcube is running deals on most of the cameras from its pet camera line for Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, so I’d check its brand page for even more sales.

If you want to save even more on security for your whole house, check out the camera bundles below that are also on a steep discount.

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