“I Believe in America!” - The Lithium Godfather - Dr. John Burba

A special episode with a true lithium legend. In his first ever podcast, Emily sits down with the Lithium Godfather himself, Dr. John Burba. 

They explore Dr. Burba's storied career from Dow Chemicals to FMC/Livent to Simbol and Molycorp. Incredible career milestones including developing patents and processes to make adsorbant materials and the development of the first ever commercial direct lithium extraction (DLE) plant in Argentina.

Episode highlights include Emily getting a lesson in solvent extraction, John himself admitting that he continues to fail at retirement, his story dealing with Elon Musk and Tesla, and what it takes to build a large scale lithium extraction plant. 

Dr. John Burba is a physical chemist and a world-renowned pioneer in lithium and other mineral extraction technologies. His more than 40-year career features a number of lithium brine projects in North and South America, notably with Dow Chemical Co., FMC Corp., and Chemtura Corp. Most recently, Dr. Burba served as CEO of Simbol materials, a company focused on the recovery of lithium from geothermal brines in Southern California. Under his leadership, Simbol successfully developed a proprietary process capable of producing low-cost, high-purity lithium products from brines that were previously believed to be too high in contaminants to be economically processed. Dr. Burba also recently served as CTO and Executive VP of Molycorp Inc., where he was instrumental in identifying and developing numerous rare earths technologies as part for the Project Phoenix re-development of the Mountain Pass facilities. Dr. Burba received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and completed doctoral studies in Physical Chemistry at Baylor University.

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-burba-b7251a1/

Website
https://www.ibatterymetals.com/