The New Lithium Rush is on! TNR.v

International Lithium Corp / TNR hit a high of $0.28 last week, retreating back to $.23 range last week, thanks in no small part to flurry of media coverage ranging from Canadian paper "Vancouver Sun" and even taking part in the cover article by well respected trade magazine Resource World 2009.

Are you going to get in before the International Lithium (ILC) shares are spun off and given to current shareholders?? At current trading prices it wouldn't be entirely out of the question to IPO at $0.40+


For those who still doubt lithium is here to stay - innovations from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the pioneer institutions of the free world is surely a sign of things to come...

http://news.cnet.com/mit-chips-away-at-lithium-ion-barrier/

Engineers at MIT have made a breakthrough that could translate into smaller, lighter, and faster-charging lithium ion batteries, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Wednesday.

Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT; aided by Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, have made a small battery that can be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds.

A detailed explanation on how they did this has been published in the March 12 issue of Nature, but here is a brief recap of what they essentially accomplished.

While lithium ion batteries have high energy densities, they are also known for their inability to gain and discharge energy quickly. That is why it commonly takes hours to recharge the battery on a plug-in electric vehicle.

Electric vehicle proponents have been struggling with this battery issue, some coming up with clever ways around it. Better Place, for example, came up with the idea of drivers saving time by swapping-out discharged car batteries for fully charged ones at electric vehicle stations.

Ceder and Kang experimented with the way lithium ions move in and around lithium iron phosphate, a material commonly used in lithium ion batteries. They worked with it to develop a new surface structure that gets ions to move more quickly from one place to another. They compare their project to building a beltway that goes around a city to avoid traffic, but has tunnels that let you drop in to exactly where you need to be.

"The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes," according to Ceder and Kang's paper in Nature.

In addition to being significantly faster, batteries made with their material degraded much less than usual lithium ion batteries after repeated discharges and recharges during testing. Because of that, they believe their batteries could be made with less material making them lighter and smaller.

Because their invention is not a completely new material, but rather a change to the way it's structured, the researchers said in a statement that their material could be implemented into commercial batteries within 2 to 3 years.

What's more - even top Engineering schools in Canada - Waterloo is targetting lithium batteries as the next big breakthrough...

Everyone wants a better battery. From handheld gadgets to the green energy of the future, many technologies hinge on finding a reusable, cheap, long-lasting power storage device.

Thanks to researchers at UW lead by Prof. Linda Nazar, new potential has been found in a chemical reaction that has been studied for 20 years, bringing an exciting development to the quest for the next generation of battery.
Lithium-sulphur batteries have long been known to have very high potential energy storage capacities for their weight in theory, much higher than currently-used lithium-ion batteries. Unfortunately, actually exploiting the reactions between lithium ions and sulphur is challenging for many reasons. For one, sulphur does not conduct electricity, so attempting to use it directly as the positive electrode means that not much charge will flow. Another problem is that chemicals called polysulphides, produced in the middle of the reaction, can escape the positive electrode and become attached to the negative one. This leads to a reduction in battery life since these molecules do not contribute to energy storage in subsequent recharging.

Prof. Nazar and her group have published the results of a proof-of-principle solution to both of these problems in a paper this month in Nature Materials. Their work considers a new architecture for the positive electrode, distributing the sulphur in a very thin layer over an array of carbon tubes separated by carbon nanofibres. The carbon conducts electricity and can impart the charge to the sulphur molecules that are in close contact with it. This allows the sulphur to react with the lithium ions in the electrolyte, the liquid that moves between the electrodes, overcoming the first challenge.

The second difficulty is partially solved by the spongy nature of the carbon-sulphur electrode. It helps prevent the polysulphide molecules that become dissolved in the electrolyte from escaping and shortening battery life. However, the researchers went a step further and added chains of molecules to the electrode structure that are very polar and tend to trap polysulphides. Prof. Nazar compares this to keeping a party alive by “bringing out another tray of appetizers” when it looks like the guests might be leaving.

Together, these improvements showed a five fold increase in the available energy storage by weight over conventional lithium-ion batteries and a loss of less than 20 per cent of the energy capacity over thirty charging cycles. Prof. Nazar thinks that achieving 100 cycles without significant capacity loss using a positive electrode system similar to theirs would be possible.
These batteries may ultimately be of use in large-scale energy storage systems. Toyota provided funding for Prof. Nazar’s project, hoping for technology that could be used in electric cars, where current lithium-ion cells are not ideal because of their limited capacity and cost. In addition, technology based on lithium-sulfur cells could be used to store energy from renewable sources, like wind or the sun, during peak production times for later use by consumers.

An important issue to consider with any industrial application is the cost of production. Prof. Nazar says that for her group’s technology, the raw materials are fairly inexpensive. Sulpher is “as cheap as you can get,” and current lithium prices are reasonably low. However, with more and more automakers racing to find technologies suitable for electric vehicle power, the demand for lithium is slowly rising. As soon as these automobiles go into mass production, lithium demand will go through the roof. Depending on how the situation progresses, we may find that lithium-sulphur batteries become more expensive to produce than we would estimate today.

On the upside, the lithium-sulphur batteries that Prof. Nazar is developing could be recyclable and the byproducts are environmentally friendly. First of all, lithium and sulphur are two very common elements found in natural environments: lithium being a component in salt brine deposits, and sulphur being mined from the earth. Also, it is possible to retrieve the lithium from spent batteries to reuse in new batteries. In this way, natural lithium resources need not be depleted to a great extent with continued production of the batteries.

When asked what first inspired her to conduct research in this exciting field of materials and electrochemistry, Prof. Nazar explained that she began her Bachelor of Science at UBC planning on either majoring in biology or physics, “but definitely not chemistry.” During her first year, however, she fell in love with chemistry, thanks to a compelling first year professor, and decided to pursue the subject further. She completed her PhD and was employed by a corporate research company, where she worked with materials related to the first lithium battery ever made. Later, she came to work at UW and has been conducting research on lithium battery technologies since 1994.

Prof. Nazar says that she would be interested in hiring students for co-op placements to add to her group, now consisting of four postgraduates, seven graduates, and four undergraduates. For the team, the next step is “making it better,” but she is also looking at other lithium battery concepts. Prof. Nazar says that, provided they are not superceded by a better technology, lithium-sulphur batteries “could be viable in the next five to ten years,” maintaining UW’s place as a leader of green innovation.

Everyone wants a better battery - isn't it funny that of all the technology that mankind has developed - energy storage has not seen significant improvement while we search and hunt for more energy options?!!

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Note of caution - Here at M101 we are beginning to see more junior companies trying to acquire rare earth and lithium deals in hoping to get a reasonable share appreciation so they can do financing afterwards...buyer beware!!

Lomiko buys nine lithium claims in Chilean salt lake

2009-06-15 12:52 ET - News Release

Mr. A. Paul Gill reports

LOMIKO TARGETS LITHIUM-RICH SALARS IN CHILE

Lomiko Metals Inc. has purchased 50 per cent of nine pedimentos (claims) making up 1,900 hectares of the Chilean salar (salt lake) known as Salar de Aguas Calientes. The board of directors approved the purchase based on the following criteria:

• The claims are in an excellent location adjacent to main sealed highway;
• The salar has significant surface brines known to contain lithium;
• The claims purchased surround a mining concession held by Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile SA (NYSE: SQM) at Salar de Aguas Calientes;
• Lithium producers will be searching for new sources of lithium to meet or increase production requirements to meet current and anticipated market demand;
• The claims are within 70 kilometres of the SQM production facility located at Salar de Atacama;
• Research indicates the amount of high-quality lithium reserves required for batteries is limited by environmental factors;
• The current market for lithium ion batteries is anticipated to grow 25 per cent per year;
• The lithium triangle located at the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia contains 70 per cent of the world's economic lithium deposits
• Forbes Magazine referred to the region as the "Saudi Arabia of lithium."

Lomiko paid $30,000 to acquire 50 per cent of the claims and is currently negotiating with the other 50-per-cent owner to complete 100-per-cent ownership on this property.