ABOUT US
LV Keno: quick, sustainable, and on-site extraction of critical metals through liquid membranes. LV keno is focused on production of contactors and membrane systems for nanolayer liquid membranes.
How do liquid membranes function?
Lithium from the brine passes through the membrane, concentrates and transforms immediately into LiCO3 final comercial product. The uncontaminated brine returns to underground aquifer. Technology is applicable for earth and super-low-gravity environments (moon, Mars).
FOUNDERS
VLADIMIR CHIBIZOV,
Founder of LV Keno SpA
Latvian civil engineer and scientist, expert in the field of membrane technologies, pioneer of direct extraction technologies for uranium,
scandium, lithium and copper using liquid membranes, with 18 patents and 35 articles to his name. Founder and CEO of the Latvian R&D Centre for Membrane Technologies
(University of Latvia, 1990). Based on membrane technology, the liquid recovery technology used on the MIR Space Station
(Soviet Union, 1986) was developed. Experience: 12 years in the field of membrane sciences (Latvian Academy of Sciences),
8 years as a researcher and lecturer (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile), director of CORFO and FONDEF projects (2013 and 2017)
– author of the hypothesis regarding the existence of Latent Chemical Energy (Chile, 2015).
Launch (2024) of the start-up: KenoLithi, an R&D start-up project entitled ‘Fingerprinting of salt flats using the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance method’.
Director of the StartUp Ciencia project “Membranas líquidas dinámicas para la extracción directa de litio” (2025–2026)
PAVEL CHIBIZOV,
Expert in liquid membranes. Innovative entrepreneur. Involvements: Start-up: KenoLithi
‘Direct lithium extraction using dynamic liquid membranes’.
Technical and administrative support for the ‘Science Start-up’: ‘Dynamic liquid membranes for direct lithium extraction.’
(2025–2026)
Contact: info@lvkeno.cl
LITHIUM
Rare Earth Elements
APPLICATION:
Application. Rare earths are the development vector of green technologies. They cover the aerospace area, eolic energy, electric vehicles, robotics, and AI.
MAIN ELEMENTS-
One of the most important elements is Neodymium. The world market for 2026 is 16,1 billion USD. When China stops supplying, the losses may reach 6,4 trillion USD.
MAIN PROBLEM-
The main challenge is producing ultra-pure metals from primary concentrates while enabling the rapid industrial deployment of rare-earth separation and purification facilities.
Currently, 91% of the supply of individual pure metals comes from China. The extremely difficult problem is the separation into individual rare earth elements. To make matters worse, this applies serious ecological problems and a low level of technological sustainability. For every tonne of rare earth oxides generates 2000 tonnes of waste including radioactive uranium and thorium.
OUR SOLUTION-
Our solution. Our solution (under development) is selective element extraction and transformation into a final commercial product with nanolayer liquid membranes.
BUSINESS MODEL- Our business model is B2B. We provide the service of separation and purification of REE from the customer’s raw material.
UNIQUE ADVANTAGE Our unique advantage is that the target electrolyte is concentrated due to latent chemical energy within the solution. No subproducts are formed, and the source of extraction stays uncontaminated. Consequently, we have the lowest CAPEX and OPEX in the industry.