Using Digital Twin Technology in the Lithium Brine Industry

The use of a Digital Twin is a formidable sounding idea. But is it really relevant, and should the lithium brine market really care?

What is it? The truth is that the term "Digital Twin" is somewhat of an umbrella term, that focuses on delivering results to one of the below key areas:

• predictive maintenance
• performance monitoring
• inventory management 

Practically speaking, that's what they are all about. And these objectives are already being pursued by most lithium brine miners today. 

For example, the use of the Zelandez BatSense product. A LiDAR powered drone that feeds data into digital representations of lithium brine ponds, to more accurately represent brine inventory. This more accurate data can significantly impact production performance, and also the efficiency of reagent use.

And with regard to predictive maintenance too. The early use of Digital Twins is happening already, from the brine well-field, right into the aboveground plant. 

For example most brine producers use the Zelandez Diagnostics and Recovery service on their lithium brine wells. 

The corrosion that can happen to lithium wells over time

By knowing in advance the predicted life of each well, upcoming replacement campaigns can be planned before the loss of production starts to impact project cashflow. 

This data itself is gathered by downhole tools that are optimised for lithium brine, feeding into models, so that downtime can be predicted and the stability of the well-field understood. 

Tools used by Zelandez in its well Diagnostics service 

So in summary then, the term Digital Twin sounds futuristic and new, but it is already happening. 

The future is already here. 

For more information on Zelandez products, book a meeting with the Zelandez team.