A University of Birmingham-led team has won £6.2 million from the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency to design membranes made from engineered proteins. The first goal is separating lithium from sodium, one of the hardest steps in extracting lithium directly from brine.
At a glance
- The three-year project is co-led by Aston University and funded under ARIA's Universal Fabricators programme.
- It is early-stage research: no working membrane has been built or tested yet.
- UK firm Evove will handle membrane manufacturing, scale-up and testing.
Background
Direct lithium extraction, or DLE, pulls lithium straight out of salty brine instead of leaving the brine to evaporate in large ponds for months. A hard part is that brine holds far more sodium than lithium, and the two ions behave very similarly, so a filter has to tell them apart almost atom by atom.
What happened
The University of Birmingham said on October 8 that a consortium it leads has won £6.2 million. The money comes from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the UK body that funds high-risk research. It is part of ARIA's Universal Fabricators programme and covers three years.
Aston University co-leads the project. Fold9 will lead AI-guided protein design, Adaptyv Bio will screen protein variants at high speed, and UK company Evove will handle membrane manufacturing, scale-up and testing.
How it is meant to work
The team will start from S-layer proteins, which some microorganisms use to build neat, repeating sheets on their surfaces. By redesigning them, the researchers want membranes with pores of a uniform size, roughly 1 to 50 ångströms. An ångström is one ten-billionth of a metre.
Pores that precise could let lithium ions through while holding back sodium. The team plans to design and screen thousands of protein variants, then make the most promising ones at larger scale and test them as membranes.
What it means
This is a starting point, not a result. The project has not yet produced a membrane, and no lithium recovery rates have been reported. Professor Owen Thomas of the University of Birmingham said that "a key challenge will be translating molecular-level control into membranes that can be manufactured" at useful scales.
If it works, the team says the same approach could later be used for other critical minerals, water treatment and chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Our read
Outlook: neutral. This is early-stage research with no product yet. It has no effect on lithium supply or prices today.
What to watch
- First results from the protein design and screening phase.
- Whether a membrane can separate lithium from sodium under realistic brine conditions.
- Whether a membrane maker like Evove can produce the material at commercial scale.
For information only, not investment advice.
Lithium price in India
metalscost.com India reference price as of 2026-10-16.
Detailed analysis
Timeline
- 2026-10-08: The University of Birmingham announces £6.2 million from ARIA for protein-based lithium membranes.
Supply Drivers
Better membranes could one day make direct lithium extraction from brine cheaper and cleaner, but this project is years from any commercial use.
Government Policies
The UK is funding the work through ARIA, its agency for high-risk, high-reward research.
What could lift prices
- A more selective membrane could make it easier to produce battery-grade lithium from brine.
- The team includes a membrane maker, Evove, to test whether the material can be produced at scale.
What could weigh on prices
- No membrane has been made or tested yet.
- Turning lab-scale control into a manufacturable membrane is the main challenge the researchers themselves name.
Country impact
| Country | Impact | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Low | It is funding the research through ARIA, and UK universities and companies are doing the work. |
Industry impact
| Industry | Effect | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Lithium Mining | Neutral | A future membrane could help extract lithium from brine, but nothing changes for producers yet. |
| Battery Manufacturing | Neutral | The first target is high-purity lithium for batteries, still years away. |
Who gains, who loses
- University of Birmingham and Aston University: They receive £6.2 million over three years for the research.
- Evove: It leads manufacturing, scale-up and testing of any membranes the project produces.
Other ways this could play out
- If the screening finds proteins that hold their structure in a membrane, the team moves on to testing under realistic conditions.
- If the precision seen at the molecular level can't be kept at manufacturing scale, the approach may stay in the lab.
Price risks
- Lithium prices today depend on mine output and battery demand, not on research at this stage.
- Any effect on supply would come only after years of testing and scale-up.
Technical view
Price is trading below both its 20-period and 50-period moving averages, a bearish alignment.
Computed from metalscost.com's own stored price history.
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