10043273A sustainable lithium supply.ClosedGrant for R&DInnovate UKAqualithium is devising and developing a commercially viable process to extract lithium from seawater in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. The demand for lithium is rising exponentially as the world transitions from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and energy to battery-powered technology and solutions. Lithium reserves are finite and current extraction methods are environmentally damaging. It is estimated that by 2040 the world's current supplies of lithium will be exhausted ( based on United States Geological Survey 2021 published figures). Either a new source of lithium will need to be found or a viable alternative battery metal will be required. There is an ongoing global research effort to find replacements for lithium. All current options are unstable and unviable in terms of both performance and length of time to develop as a credible option. Billions have been invested in building battery factories and infrastructure around lithium-ion batteries. There are untapped sources of lithium: the world's seas contain vast amounts of lithium and the race is now on to establish how to extract this lithium in the most commercially effective and sustainable way. The first stage of the overall project which was self funded , was to achieve Proof Of Concept by extracting lithium from a sample of seawater in a laboratory environment.This was successfully completed by The Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath in December 2021\. This is the first time this has been accomplished using a combination of nano filtration membranes and adsorption separation. Extractions have been completed elsewhere but using methods such as electrodialysis which proved not to be scalable. The Aqualithium method is considered by scientists to be the most likely to be proved commercially viable. Aqualithium are currently the only UK entity to have reached this level of success in this field.As a result they won the Innovative Start Up of The Year at the National Start Up Awards in June 2022\. * This project now needs to undertake stage two which is to conduct laboratory tests at the University of Bath to establish the potential commercial viability of the innovative process. * At the same time Aqualithium must promote their innovation and present its potential to future partners who could benefit from the successful research. Approaches have already been made by two major international car manufacturers. Aqualithium are also starting to attract the attention of investors keen to see the outcome of this project.