Texas A&M University engineers have secured a $1 million U.S. Department of Energy award to build tiny, fish-like swimming nanorobots that hunt lithium ions in seawater — a bid to open a new, low-footprint front in the race to secure critical minerals for batteries and electric vehicles.
Swimming Robots Over Brine Ponds
Dr. Shiren Wang of the Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Dr. Jingjing (Jenny) Qiu of the J. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering are leading the project, one of 19 DOE-funded critical-minerals awards announced on July 29, 2026. Existing lithium production relies on land-based mining or underground brine extraction — both energy- and land-intensive.
"Unlike traditional mining that digs up land or pumps brine from underground and requires massive amounts of energy, these autonomous micro/nanorobots move freely through seawater to harvest lithium with virtually zero infrastructure footprint," Qiu said.
How The Robots Work
The team's specialised micro- and nanoparticles are propelled through seawater by external cues — light, magnetic fields or chemical gradients — and can be swept back up by magnetic fields for the recovery step. Because they move like fish rather than sitting on stationary membranes, the robots actively seek lithium ions instead of waiting for water to flow past.
Why It Matters For The Battery Race
Global lithium demand is climbing sharply as EV, grid-storage and consumer-electronics output ramps, and domestic supply is dominated by a handful of geographies. A working seawater-recovery robot could dramatically expand the U.S. resource base without new mines. The team still has to solve selectivity against the other minerals dissolved in seawater, durability in a marine environment and cost-effective scale-up before industrial demonstration.
The award lands alongside a busy summer for battery R&D, including Eos Energy's zinc-battery microgrid in Nebraska and KIMS's cyanide-free silver plating for EV connectors.
Reporting based on coverage from Texas A&M Stories, ScienceDaily and Nanowerk.