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Week 3/2009: Lithium valley of dreams

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Lithium will soon be mined in central Finland. The Finnish company Keliber Oy aims to launch mining operations and the production of ultra-pure lithium carbonate in 2010. Lithium mining is a new and significant advance for the Finnish mining and chemical industry – significant to the extent that Postdoctoral Researcher and geologist Sari Lukkari from the Academy of Finland and CEO Olle Siren from Keliber dare to hope that the production chain will constitute a "new Nokia" for Finland.

"The need for reducing carbon emissions from traffic will increase the global demand for lithium carbonate exponentially," Lukkari says.

Lithium is a light alkali metal used in the batteries of the hybrid cars soon to enter mass production, and the electric and hydrogen fuel cell powered cars of the future. New cell phones and laptops already have lithium batteries, as do musical instruments, cameras and navigators.

At the moment, lithium is not mined or refined anywhere within the European Union. Using her three-year Postdoctoral Research funding, Sari Lukkari and her team will create a model for the efficient and advantageous prospecting and utilisation of lithium ore.

The cross-disciplinary, international research project was launched at the turn of the year. In addition to the Department of Geology at the University of Helsinki, research work will be carried out at the Institute of Mineralogy of the University of Hannover. Technical research will be completed in the Laboratory of Process Metallurgy and the Chemistry Department at the University of Oulu.

Text: Pauliina Susi
Picture: Wikipedia
Translation: AAC Noodi
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