The Horizon Europe CRM-geothermal project has released technical factsheets and tools intended to move recovery of lithium and other critical materials from geothermal fluids closer to industrial use. The project said the new deliverables translate technical results into practical resources for operators, mining specialists, technology companies and policymakers.
Running from May 2022 through January 2027, the project has a total cost of 6.20 million euros. It treats geothermal development as a combined energy-and-minerals system rather than as a standalone heat or power project, and includes joint resource evaluation under the United Nations Framework Classification.
The project’s tools include a Lithium Estimation AI Tool and a European and East African Fluid Atlas. Its work also covers social-licence guidance and extraction approaches including ion-sieve adsorption, selective ion-exchange membranes, modified biopolymers, bioextraction, helium recovery and gas-diffusion electrocrystallisation. A miniplant component focuses on removing lithium from geothermal brines by adsorption.
The industrial opportunity is to co-produce materials using geothermal infrastructure that already circulates large volumes of hot fluid. Geothermal power or heat can provide some of the energy and physical infrastructure needed for recovery, while metal extraction could add a second revenue stream to projects where fluid chemistry is favourable. This does not remove geological or process risk, but can change project economics under suitable conditions.
Geothermal fluids can contain commercially interesting concentrations of lithium and other elements, but their chemistry is site-specific. Competing ions, temperature constraints and scaling risks can affect extraction. Selectivity, sorbent life and regeneration costs determine whether a resource can move from geochemical potential to bankable production.
For Europe, recovering minerals from geothermal fluids fits a broader strategy of exploiting unconventional domestic resources rather than relying entirely on conventional mines. The next step is field validation to demonstrate that extraction systems can operate continuously, manage scaling and impurities, and maintain recovery rates over long operating periods. Projects that overcome those engineering constraints could create a new intersection between geothermal energy development and critical-material production.
