Medford, MA. Lithios, a pioneer in domestic lithium extraction systems, announced today that it has begun field operations of its electrochemical Advanced Lithium Extraction (ALE) technology.

Lithios allows developers to unlock lithium from the low-grade brine deposits that make up 90% of the world’s lithium brine resources. The US alone possesses over $1T in untapped lithium value, which is trapped in low-grade brines owing to the high cost and environmental impacts associated with their development at commercial scale.

ALE offers the lowest-cost solution to this critical need. By pairing highly selective lithium capture electrodes with precise voltages, ALE can extract lithium at a significantly lower cost than both traditional methods and competing extraction technologies, while also removing the need for large quantities of chemicals as well as energy- and water-intensive downstream processing steps.

“Lithium demand is growing at a pace that will soon vastly outstrip supply, and the industry lacks the tools needed to access lower grades of lithium deposits” said Mo Alkhadra, co-founder and CEO of Lithios. “Without a sufficient and reliable source of lithium, the production of lithium-ion batteries and the systems that rely on them—including EVs, drones, and AI data centers—are all at risk. Advanced, US-built technology like ALE is the solution: a high-performance system that can enable cost-effective, efficient lithium extraction here at home and beyond to secure the lithium supply chain and close the gap between global supply and demand.”

Lithios began commissioning its field pilot system, named Project Breakthrough, in October following several months of piloting at its headquarters in Massachusetts. When operated at full capacity, the unit can produce one ton per year of lithium carbonate equivalent, an important step in demonstrating commercial viability. The unique advantage of ALE is its ability to work equally effectively across a broad variety of feedstocks, ranging from oilfield brines to ultra low-grade produced water, without any modifications to the unit.

“This project lays the groundwork for subsequent planned field deployments at progressively larger scale starting in 2026. The ALE platform offers superior performance at unmatched efficiency and cost, and we see it as becoming the go-to extraction technology for commercial lithium production projects around the world. The team has worked tirelessly to get us to this point and we’re very excited about what’s next.”

###

About Lithios

Lithios is an American company developing the first scalable electrochemical lithium capture solution, Advanced Lithium Extraction (ALE), to efficiently extract lithium from vast untapped sources. Developed by MIT scientists and engineers with world-class expertise in metal separations, Lithios unlocks massive new sources of lithium at the lowest cost to meet demand from the growing energy and critical minerals markets.