News

Spotlight on Innovation: Research Breakthroughs from CRM-geothermal Europe’s journey to climate neutrality by 2050 depends on securing the materials that power the green transition. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), adopted in 2024, lays the foundation for...

The CRM-Geothermal Final Conference is taking place in person on 25 February 2026, from 13:00 to 17:00 CET in Offenburg, Germany, organised in cooperation with GeoTHERM 2026: https://www.geotherm-offenburg.de/en Participation is free and does not require a GeoTHERM...

We are pleased to invite you to a joint webinar on social acceptance topics, organised by the CRM-geothermal and CEEGS projects. This insightful session will delve into the critical aspects of social license to operate (SLO) and community engagement within the context...

As part of the EU-funded CRM-geothermal project, an innovation bootcamp for policymakers, operators, and mining professionals was organised at Vulcan Energy Resources’ sites in Insheim and Landau (Germany) on 8 September 2025. The event was co-organised by...

We are excited to invite you to a webinar to present the Lithium Estimation AI Tool, developed by project partner INLECOM as part of the EU-funded CRM-geothermal project. This innovative AI-driven solution is poised to transform how we explore lithium within...

Some of the CRM-geothermal project researchers will be presenting their work at the Goldschmidt Conference, taking place 6–11 July 2025 in Prague.   Don't miss their presentations: Monday 7 July, 17:30-19:30, Poster Hall 2B (2nd floor, Prague Congress Centre) -...

The CRM-geothermal Milestone 13 'Definition of elements for which GDEx will be optimised' has been successfully achieved by project partner VITO.VITO G-DEx Team In the coming months, the research of the GDEx technology to extract lithium from geothermal fluids and...

Our survey aims to gather insights into the reasons behind public support or opposition to mining and geothermal projects.

Task 3.2 focused on the development of ion-exchange polymers formed into beads able to carry out the separation of Li+ from the other cations found in a brine (e.g., Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+). In a later step, such ion-exchange polymers will be formed into membranes to carry out such separation in conjunction of an “extracting fluid”. At the present stage, Li separation from the brine is carried out by a multi-step process. The latter consists in the following elementary steps: (i) selective binding of the brine cations into the beads; (ii) concentration of the cations and modulation of the counter-anions; and (iii) final separation of Li by means of high-efficiency solvent extraction. The beads used for selective Li separation consist of a very inexpensive ion-exchange aromatic polymer, whose production is straightforward and whose physicochemical properties are easy to modulate to tailor selectivity. UNIPD will mainly focus on the extraction of Li from the brines; Sr extraction will be considered at a later stage. The Li extraction will be first tested on synthetic brines and later implemented on natural brines.