TechChina’s ‘Salt Lake City’ powers EVs worldwide with ‘white petroleum’

Geermu, known as China’s “Salt Lake City,” holds vast salt-lake mineral reserves, but its high magnesium-to-lithium ratio once made lithium extraction nearly impossible. Chinese engineers developed an “adsorption + membrane” process that cut production time from two years to two months and doubled recovery. Lithium from Qinghai’s salt lakes may now supply one in eight EVs sold worldwide.