A commercially available glass etching paste from craft supplies gave MIT chemists an idea: dissolving silica dioxide at low temperature. Spodumene, the world's most important lithium rock, consists largely of it. Yet-Ming Chiang and his team used this property to develop an extraction process that liberates lithium from hard rock without high-temperature furnaces and chemical waste. On May 28, 2026, the study appeared in Science. The resulting startup Rock Zero estimates production costs at under 6,000 dollars per ton, half the currently dominant roasting method.
Spodumene and the Limits of Current Rock Extraction
Lithium occurs in two economically viable main forms: as dissolved salt in brines, especially in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, and as mineral in hard rock, particularly as spodumene (LiAlSi₂O₆). Australia is the world's largest lithium producer from hard rock with major spodumene deposits; significant reserves also exist in Canada, Portugal, and Zimbabwe. The International Energy Agency expects global lithium demand to rise sharply, driven by electric vehicles and stationary energy storage.
The current rock extraction method is energy-intensive: the spodumene concentrate, typically containing 6 to 7 percent lithium oxide, is first roasted at over 1,000 degrees Celsius to break the crystal structure. This is followed by acid leaching, generating chemical waste. Deposits with high iron content cannot be processed by this method and remain economically uninteresting.
Ammonium Fluoride Instead of 1,000 Degrees
Inspiration for the new process came, according to MIT Technology Review, from a commercially available glass etching paste from craft supplies. This dissolves silica dioxide at low temperature, and spodumene consists largely of silica dioxide. Yet-Ming Chiang, Kyocera professor of materials science at MIT, recognized together with colleagues that ammonium fluoride has this same property: it breaks spodumene's crystal structure at room temperature through 95 degrees Celsius maximum, requiring no high-temperature furnaces.
Extraction takes under twelve hours. Ammonium fluoride is recovered in a closed loop and reused; waste barely occurs. Byproducts include meltable aluminum oxide and cement-suitable silica dioxide, separately marketable. Rock Zero thus produces not only lithium carbonate for batteries but also raw materials for aluminum and cement industries. Co-founders are Camden Hunt (CEO) and Benjamin Mowbray (CTO), both former MIT researchers, with Mowbray authoring the study's first article.
In Comparison: Brine, Roasting, and the Columbia Process
Brine extraction from salt lakes, dominating especially in the Atacama Desert, requires evaporation ponds taking 12 to 24 months to fill and consuming large water quantities. Columbia University researchers also presented a solvent process in 2026 extracting lithium from brine faster and cleaner. The Rock Zero process is complementary: it applies to rock, not brine, and geographically taps different deposits in Australia, Canada, Portugal, and other hard-rock-resource countries. The two methods compete not but cover different sources.
Another advantage of the MIT process: it processes ores with high iron content unsuitable for traditional roasting. This opens deposits previously economically unusable. Geographic dispersion of possible production sites could also reduce dependence on few supply chains, a factor increasingly relevant for European industrialized nations regarding supply security.
Under 6,000 Dollars Per Ton: Pilot Plant by 2027
Rock Zero plans pilot plant construction by end of 2026, with operation commencing 2027. The under-6,000-dollar-per-ton cost forecast lies in the range of brine extraction according to researchers and well below current hard-rock costs. Estimates currently rest on laboratory values and modeled values. Whether they hold in industrial practice, pilot phase will show.
For the energy transition, cost is central. Lithium carbonate prices fluctuated between 2020 and 2024 from under 10,000 to over 80,000 dollars per ton, driven by speculative demand and supply shortages during electric vehicle industry ramp-up. More cheaply available lithium from previously uneconomic rock deposits could stabilize global supply and dampen such price swings. This benefits not only battery manufacturers but also nations seeking to broaden strategic raw material security.