MGX Minerals Inc. of Vancouver, Canada, continues to explore the latest technologies in mineral extraction, saying its partner PurLucid, also based in Canada, has developed a high temperature filtration method to purify geothermal brines - similar to oil field brines.
Geothermal brines, like those from oilfields, contain concentrated amounts of metals and dissolved salts, including lithium and gold. A barrier in the industry has been the need to reduce brine temperatures so filtration can occur - a barrier known as scaling that severely reduces flow and heat transfer of geothermal heat exchangers.
But Purlucid and MGX have now developed a proprietary, low energy design process that removes these scale-forming ions and dissolved salts while not requiring a reduction in brine temperatures for filtration to occur, said the company. Notably, the process uses PurLucid's existing patented and exclusively licensed replaceable membrane skin layers (RSL) filtration system.
Similar to MGX's existing wastewater treatment and rapid petrolithium recovery units, MGX and PurLucid are now undertaking studies to build treatment systems capable of being integrated into existing geothermal infrastructure or incorporated as standalone systems for mineral and metals extraction.