Researchers Develop Mercury-Free Method for Producing Lithium-6, Key to Fusion Energy

The new process, discovered during groundwater cleanup research, offers a safer and scalable alternative to the banned COLEX method.

Scientists at Texas A&M University and ETH Zürich have created a mercury-free method to isolate lithium-6 using zeta-vanadium oxide (zeta-V2O5).
The method enriches lithium-6 by 5.7% per cycle and can achieve fusion-grade enrichment levels (30%) after 25 cycles.
Lithium-6 is essential for breeding tritium, a critical fuel for nuclear fusion reactors, but U.S. production has been halted since 1963 due to environmental concerns with the COLEX process.
The discovery was made accidentally while developing membranes for cleaning groundwater contaminated during oil and gas extraction.
Efforts are now underway to scale the method for industrial production, addressing a major supply chain bottleneck for nuclear fusion energy.