Slashing CO2

Founded: 2016

HQ: Oakland, CA

Clean, fast, cheap lithium mining.

Big Picture

The rapid growth of electric vehicles is expected to drive up lithium demand 6x in the next decade. Today, lithium mining is slow, expensive, and geographically constrained. It has the added downside of being environmentally destructive. To avoid shortages that slow down deployment of EVs, industry needs to unlock materially more supply, and do so with much cleaner energy and water footprints.

How It Works

Lilac’s ion exchange beads extract lithium from low- concentration brines without evaporation ponds. Using these specially designed beads, they are able to recover high-purity lithium cheaper, faster, and with 99% less water use than conventional extraction methods. Their modular extraction technology also operates at ambient temperature, reducing process CO2 emissions along with opex. 

Unfair Advantage

Compared with conventional lithium extraction processes, Lilac’s technology is 5000x faster and recovers 2x more resources at a 50% lower cost. Factor in Lilac’s IP that enables the extraction of resources inaccessible by conventional extraction processes, and they are uniquely positioned to vertically integrate, putting them on a course to become the world’s largest lithium producer within a decade. 

0.5

Gigatons of CO2

potentially avoided per year by 2030

DAVID SNYDACKER CEO & FOUNDER

Dave is a materials engineer and expert in battery technology. He holds a PhD from Northwestern University.

Follow: @dsnydacker

TOM WILSON CDO

Tom has 15 years of upstream oil and gas experience. At Hess Corporation, Tom executed large-scale projects across five continents.

DAVID GLINAS CFO

David previously helped take smart energy storage company Stem, Inc. public as its VP of Finance & Business Operations.


Lilac raises $150 million for sustainable lithium extraction technology

CNBC

Lithium crisis threatens electric car boom after 500% surge

Bloomberg

Protecting fragile ecosystems from lithium mining

BBC

Lithium prices soar, turbocharged by electric-vehicle demand and scant supply

The Wall Street Journal