Media Center (Blog)

John Flake, interim director of LSU’s Minerals Processing Institute, shares an industry outlook on Louisiana’s growing lead in critical minerals and materials.

Biometric identity verification is widespread, but most methods are neither entirely secure nor secret. People leave fingerprints everywhere. It's easy to find high-resolution photos of a person's face or eyes on social media. In the last decade, millions of biometric records have been permanently breached because, unlike a compromised password, there's no changing your biometrics. However, LSU has created a biometric authentication system that is as accurate as retinal or fingerprint scans and more secure.

The United States imports 25% of its lithium, which is listed as critical mineral by both the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Geological Survey. Meanwhile, brines in the Smackover Formation, which stretches from Texas to Florida through Louisiana, could help meet domestic and global needs. Pinpointing the richest brines requires extensive and time-consuming sampling and analysis. LSU researchers hope to make the search for lithium-rich brines faster by characterizing the formation waters, defining what's in them and how it came to be there.