Lithium brine... https://www.jwpm.com.au/industrial-marketing-blog/lithium-a-case-of-a-salt-and-battery
Lithium is concentrated in salt deposits already in the ground, and brine mining is a much simpler and faster technique than hard rock mining, Brine, typically carrying 200–1,400 milligrams per litre of lithium, is pumped to the surface and concentrated by evaporation in ponds.
Depending on pond depth, height above sea level and local weather, concentration by evaporation can take from 3 to 9 months. A concentrate of 1 to 2% lithium is further processed in a chemical plant to provide various end products, such as lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.
The Lithium chemistry can become complex particularly since the brine can also contain other troublesome elements such as magnesium.
However, lithium brine processing costs much less, is faster, and delivers 99.9% purity, higher than possible from hard rock mining.
