Can Fool’s Gold Become the New Gold?

Pyrite, also known as fool’s gold because of its brass-yellow bright metallic luster, could be a potential source of lithium, an essential component in clean energy.

Lithium is the chemical element used in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras, and electric vehicles. It is also used in non-rechargeable batteries that are used in heart pacemakers, toys, and clocks.

The particular chemical element was discovered from a mineral, while other common alkali metals were discovered from plant material. This is thought to explain the origin of the element’s name; from ‘lithos’, the Greek word for stone.

Lithium is found in rock ores, which are mined and crushed, or in briny water, where it can be extracted using evaporation. Lithium is an essential component of clean energy technologies, from electric vehicles (EVs) to the big batteries used to store electricity at power plants.

Furthermore, it has more sinister applications: Lithium-6, an isotope of the soft metal, is crucial for breeding tritium, which is the hydrogen isotope that lies at the heart of nuclear fusion. Along with the above qualities of lithium, we can understand why the U.S. government calls it a critical mineral.

Another property of lithium is that it is incredibly reactive. Pure lithium violently interacts with seemingly innocuous water, releasing heat and forming highly flammable hydrogen.

Lithium from Fool’s Gold

The high cost of lithium production has pushed scientists to seek less costly ways to obtain this important chemical element.

According to a Phys.org report, a team led by researchers from West Virginia University is exploring whether previous industrial operations could serve as a source of additional lithium without generating waste materials.

Shailee Bhattacharya, a sedimentary geochemist and doctoral student working with Professor Shikha Sharma in the university’s IsoBioGeM Lab, struck fool’s gold when they found traces of the chemical in pyrite.

The study focused on 15 middle-Devonian sedimentary rock samples from the Appalachian basin in the U.S. The team found plenty of lithium in pyrite minerals in shale, a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud.

Organic-rich shale may show potential for higher lithium recovery as a result of that curious interaction between the precious element and pyrite. However, samples from other geological sites need to be taken in order to find whether the same interaction would occur.

Bhattacharya said that this finding is promising because it hints at the possibility that certain shales could be a source of the element that doesn’t require new mines. This method would also be a very green option, as starting up new lithium mines costs a lot in time, money, and environmental pollution.