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Extremely helpful, thanks for the extra detail here. I have a background in the oil industry and live in a region strip mined for coal (I actually can't tap a useful ground well because of it), but I don't know much about how lithium is actually extracted.

As far as evap ponds go, are there usually chemicals or elements in the same brine water as lithium that is important when evaporating into the atmosphere?

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There are a lot of things in deep subsurface brine. It really varies.

First and foremost, here are definitely lots of other salts. It is brine, after all. You produce a lot of halite (salt), gypsum, calcite, and all kinds of other evaporite minerals.

There are all kinds of things in smaller concentrations, though.

What comes out of a oil/water separator would need lots of additional processing before going to something like an evap pond. It's relatively hazardous stuff for a lot of reasons other than oil (e.g. it can be rather radioactive). It typically goes through quite a bit of additional processing unless it's being immediately reinjected.

Yeah, underground brine is rarely nice to be around, especially when concentrated, but does often have a lot of useful minerals. Related facts, I’m guessing.

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