Problem:  Geothermal brines in central California are used for energy production, but it turns out they also contain large amounts of lithium in the form of dissolved salts. If you could only extract the lithium cost effectively…

Solution: Create a proprietary lithium ion selective capture granule that extracts the lithium from the brine, pump the brine back underground and then rinse the granules with water to recover concentrated lithium! A little more work than listed here was required to develop and scale the manufacturing process, but you get the idea.