A PhD Thesis That Became a Company
Mohammad Alkhadra was not trying to start a company. He was trying to solve a fundamental electrochemistry problem: how to selectively separate lithium ions from complex brine mixtures without the massive evaporation ponds that dominate conventional extraction.
The breakthrough came during his doctoral work at MIT. His research group developed an electrochemical separation method that could pull lithium from brines with concentrations as low as 50 ppm — far below the threshold where traditional evaporation becomes economical. The process used 90% less water, occupied 1% of the land footprint, and completed extraction in hours instead of 18 months.
The implications were immediate. Geothermal power plants in the Imperial Valley sit on top of lithium-rich brines that nobody can extract economically. Oil and gas produced water contains lithium that gets reinjected into disposal wells. Even spent battery recycling streams have lithium concentrations that conventional methods cannot recover profitably.
Mohammad founded Lithios in 2024 to bring this technology out of the lab and into the field. The company relocated to Houston to be close to the energy industry partners and geothermal operators who would become its first customers.