Ernesto Calvo directs the University of Buenos Aires Institute of Physical Chemistry of Materials, Environment and Energy (Inquimae) and is a member of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet), a federal agency that coordinates scientific research. In recent years his research has focused on lithium, whose ample reserves in the salt flats of northern Argentina, northern Chile and southern Bolivia are of keen interest to battery and electric-car manufacturers. Calvo and his team have developed what they describe as a “clean process” for extracting lithium from natural brines. He says their electrochemical method requires far less water and does not generate the sodium chloride and magnesium sulfate waste produced by the current process, which relies on evaporation. For that work, Calvo won this year’s Bright Minds Challenge, an initiative of Royal DSM and other science-based companies to spotlight innovation. Calvo spoke in Buenos Aires this month with EcoAméricas correspondent Daniel Gutman. [Log in to read more]

Would you like to Subscribe?