[Aju News DB]
South Korean steel giant POSCO acquired a new cash cow Tuesday by completing a plant capable of extracting 2,500 tons of high-purity lithium every year that could be used to produce batteries for 70 million notebook computers.
The plant called "PosLX" opened in a ceremony in the southern city of Gwangyang. POSCO will supply its product first to South Korean battery makers such as LG Chem and Samsung SDI.
Most of the world's lithium production is in South America where the standard extraction technique is to evaporate water from brine with each batch taking from 18 to 24 months.
POSCO has developed its own technology to extract lithium phosphate from brine and convert it to lithium carbonate. The process takes less than one month. The development of lithium-ion batteries has increased global demand for lithium.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
