The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Potential environmental impacts of lithium mining
Abstract
The unprecedented demand for highly efficient batteries for use in electric vehicles and other electronics has generated an increased demand for lithium-ion batteries. Lithium is highly desirable given its light weight and its ability to store high amounts of energy. Some estimates have pegged the demand for lithium-ion batteries to reach 2.2 million tonnes by 2030. Consequently, the exploitation and mining of lithium has generated much interest from various sectors of industry and society. Although studies on life-cycle assessment of lithium batteries have been conducted, there is a paucity of information regarding the environmental impacts of the mining of the actual lithium raw material. This article aims to explain how lithium mining is conducted and processed, what the mining and chemical issues are, and what the potential environmental impacts are from a technical and mining engineering perspective.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Water metrics generated by quantitative frameworks such as life cycle assessment (LCA) are often limited or underused in relation to mined materials, including lithium”
From Lithium and water: Hydrosocial impacts across the life cycle of energy storage (2024) · cites this paper as Kaunda, 2020
In the citing paper
“The opportunity cost of this disruption has been described and analyzed from a social [21,103,106] and environmental perspective [65,107,108].”
From The water footprint of lithium extraction technologies: Insights from environmental impact reports in Argentina's salt flats (2025) · cites this paper as [108]
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling─Overview of Techniques and Trends
Baum, Z. J., Bird, R. E., Yu, X., & Ma, J. (2022) · ACS Energy Letters · doi:10.1021/acsenergylett.1c02602 · Cited by 747
Reich, R., Slunitschek, K., Danisi, R. M., Eiche, E., & Kolb, J. (2023) · Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review · doi:10.1080/08827508.2022.2047041 · Cited by 120
Life Cycle Assessment and Techno-Economic Assessment of Lithium Recovery from Geothermal Brine
Huang, T.-Y., Pérez-Cardona, J. R., Zhao, F., Sutherland, J. W., & Paranthaman, M. P. (2021) · ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering · doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08733 · Cited by 104
Marconi, P., Arengo, F., & Clark, A. (2022) · Wetlands Ecology and Management · doi:10.1007/s11273-022-09872-6 · Cited by 60
“The direct impact on wetlands of lithium mining infrastructure and activity in terms of habitat loss, conversion, and degradation include salinization of soils and wetlands, contamination, alteration of water flows, and land subsidence, with effects on local flora and fauna (Kaunda 2020).”
BackgroundCatalytic Processes to Accelerate Decarbonization in a Net-Zero Carbon World
Wang, Y., Tian, Y., Pan, S., & Snyder, S. W. (2022) · ChemSusChem · doi:10.1002/cssc.202201290 · Cited by 39
Metadata
- Authors
- Kaunda, R. B.
- Affiliations
- Colorado School of Mines (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kaunda, Rennie B
- ORCID
- Kaunda, Rennie B
- Venue
- Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-05-19
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 237-244
- ISSN
- 0264-6811 (ISSN-L)
- 2376-4538
- OpenAlex
- W3027938922
- Cited by
- 203
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 8.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Metals and Alloys › Extraction and Separation Processes
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Mining and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Geology and Environmental Impact Studies
- Keywords
- lithium mining, environmental impact, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles, battery raw materials, mining engineering, lithium processing, life cycle assessment, lithium demand
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Potential environmental impacts of lithium mining. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1080/02646811.2020.1754596
- The paper
- Kaunda, R. B. (2020). Potential environmental impacts of lithium mining. Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646811.2020.1754596
