PROCESSING GEOTHERMAL BRINE

This Brine processing facility belongs to our company, Agua Dulce Technologies. We’ve developed a membrane technology suitable for processing geothermal brine, mine drainage, dilute leach solutions, dilute gold solutions and PGM solutions. The technology dehydrates the dilute feedstock by removing excess water and thereby increasing its miner salt concentration. Freshwater becomes available for industrial use. The smaller volume of concentrate solution produced by dehydration upgrades mineral salts and eliminates the need for larger downstream units. Lowers capex and opex of mineral extraction

In the case for geothermal brine , the liquor is obtained from geo formations at pressurized and high temp (+150℃ ) conditions. The heat is used to drive turbines and generate electricity. After expansion, the steam pressure drops and water temperature from the exit turbine point hovers around 100℃.

Per U.S. Government rule, brine water should be injected back into the groundwater formation to keep the system clean in equilibrium. Geothermal source should not be depleted in water, you get it! Pump back the water to be reheated and recycled. How do you extract minerals from such a huge volume of water : 10,000-15,000 gallons per minute at 100℃.

Most metallurgical extraction systems will fail at these level of temperatures . This is where our company will provide a unique solution that does not cool geothermal brine because cooling this liquor will open a can of worms: base metals will start precipitating out and consequently raises problems of disposal ponds. Most importantly, the Government will not allow your disturb brine equilibrium. Remember brine should provide heat and return to the subsurface rocks. Do you see the dilemma? So, you can’t let the temperatures drop and trigger mineral precipitation because it’s against the law. You’ll fall out with government. But the US has issued permits for technologies that can only extract Lithium from hot brine then send back all minerals underground to stabilize the composition and rock formation.

We designed a clever technology that extracts Lithium from very geothermal brine at extremely high temperatures. You ‘ll not see this anywhere. Technology is also applicable to cold brines, copper effluents , radioactive waste solutions etc. we can recover water and specific metal salts selectively.