Evaluation of the lithium resource in the Smackover Formation brines of southern Arkansas using machine learning.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39331718.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adp8149 and PMC identifier 11430454.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Global demand for lithium, the primary component of lithium-ion batteries, greatly exceeds known supplies, and this imbalance is expected to increase as the world transitions away from fossil fuel energy sources. High concentrations of lithium in brines have been observed in the Smackover Formation in southern Arkansas (>400 milligrams per liter). We used published and newly collected brine lithium concentration data to train a random forest machine-learning model using geologic, geochemical, and temperature explanatory variables and create a map of predicted lithium concentrations in Smackover Formation brines across southern Arkansas. Using these predicted lithium maps with reservoir parameters and geologic information, we calculated that there are 5.1 to 19 million tons of lithium in Smackover Formation brines in southern Arkansas, which represents 35 to 136% of the current US lithium resource estimate. Based on these calculations, in 2022, 5000 tons of dissolved lithium were brought to the surface within brines as waste streams of the oil, gas, and bromine industries.