In 2018, the Canadian company Standard Lithium announced that a memorandum of understanding had been signed with LANXESS to test and prove the commercial viability of the extraction of lithium from brine.
That December, the company announced that the extraction process had been successful, and it would be establishing a full-scale pilot plant at LANXESS's South Plant to continue testing the technology and demonstrating its efficacy.
A year after that, the pilot plant's physical structure had been built in Canada and shipped to El Dorado, and was nearly ready to start operations.
Three years later, in December 2022, Standard Lithium made another announcement: an agreement with LANXESS would allow it to begin working on its first commercial lithium project.
The agreement grants Standard Lithium exclusive access to property at LANXESS's South Plant – where the pilot plant is currently located – and complete a feasibility study for the commercial facility.
"The data gathered over the next few months will be vital to allow the OPD (Optimized Process Designs Inc., a Koch Industries commercial engineering firm) team to design the plant and locate key equipment available on the large land area available to Standard Lithium at LANXESS' South Plant facility," said company President Dr. Andy Robinson in a news release.
A commercial lithium plant in El Dorado isn't guaranteed, but Standard Lithium is currently in the process of conducting front-end engineering design (FEED) and definitive feasibility studies (DFS) to determine whether such a facility would be commercially viable.
"Both studies, FEED AND DFS, are on scheduled for completion in Q2 of 2023. The DFS is a comprehensive study that includes the detailed technical and financial analysis that are necessary for a final investment decision for the project to proceed," Standard Lithium CEO Robert Mintak said in an email in December.
If the company decides the investment is worthwhile, the commercial plant would be the first of its kind, and could have an enormous economic impact.
Lithium is used in all sorts of products, from medications to aircraft. One of its most important uses is in making rechargeable batteries for products like mobile phones, laptops, cameras and electric vehicles.
According to a PBS report from March 2022, only one active lithium mine was located in the United States at that time.
"The U.S. currently depends almost exclusively on other countries to supply lithium, with roughly, only 5,000 tons of annual domestic production. U.S. demand for lithium chemicals is projected to exceed 500,000 tons annually by 2030," Mintak noted.
Several other lithium mining projects are in the works around the country, according to the PBS article, but Standard Lithium's project in El Dorado is not a lithium mine.
When the company came to El Dorado in 2018, it was with the purpose of testing a new technology for lithium production. Standard Lithium's proprietary direct lithium extraction technology, where lithium is extracted from tail brine, a byproduct of LANXESS's bromine production process.
"We're making chemical products, not a raw commodity," Robinson told the News-Times in 2019. "We're extracting it from the brine, then doing sophisticated chemistry to convert it into a chemical that goes into batteries."
Robinson estimated in 2019 that a commercial plant at the LANXESS site could produce 21,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year, according to previous reporting.
"As a kid, one of my favorite cartoons was when Yosemite Sam was the antagonist in a Bugs Bunny show, bellowing out, 'There's gold in them thar hills.' Once Standard Lithium's proposed commercial plant is complete and the extraction of lithium from the underground brine begins, all eyes will be on Union County, and folks from around the world will be shouting, 'There's lithium in the water,' as they head out to southwest Arkansas," El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bill Luther said about Standard Lithium's site agreement with LANXESS in December.
The site agreement secured the lease area, pending the DFS, for commercial development at the LANXESS South Plant. Mintak said the project is currently on schedule, and the company will provide updates as time goes on. The company is currently studying ground conditions at the site and placing key pieces of equipment, according to a February press release.
If all goes well, El Dorado may once again be a boomtown, but instead of striking oil, lithium will be the economic driver.
"Our south Arkansas project is attracting significant attention from tier one battery makers and global automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) urgently looking for a domestic source of sustainably-produced lithium and a number of them have made the trip to El Dorado to visit our project," Mintak said in December.