Expert Voices: Andy Odenthal Builds Production Facilities, Pilot Plants … and Concrete Canoes 

May 7, 2025

This is part of a series featuring Albemarle experts who lead the world in transforming essential resources into critical ingredients that power our lives. 

In college, Andy Odenthal captained a team that trained for boat races – not in sleek kayaks or graceful sailboats, but in something far less likely to float. 

Concrete canoes.

It was part of an annual competition organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Odenthal was studying civil and environmental engineering at Mississippi State University. Before the race, each 300-pound canoe had to be fully submerged and then prove its worth by floating to the surface, confirming that the boat was less dense than water. Only then could four teammates climb aboard and row a course that stretched as far as 10 football fields.

“I started doing it when I was a freshman,” Odenthal says. “Normally, only upper classmen are doing that kind of hands-on, technical problem-solving, but I didn’t want to wait.”

Today, Odenthal still builds things that defy expectations – only now, they’re much bigger and far more complex. As a project director for Albemarle, he works with a team that plays a pivotal role helping create some of the most modern and sustainable ways to extract critical minerals. 

Consider:

• With the growing demand for lithium carbonate – an ingredient for products ranging from medicine to electric vehicle batteries – he helped double production capacity at Albemarle's facility in La Negra, Chile. The site is now one of the world’s largest lithium carbonate production complexes.
• In Jordan, he’s helping develop an innovative project to recover bromine from waste streams in an energy-efficient way. It’s expected to reduce the site’s carbon dioxide intensity by more than 5% and save water in a country where the liquid is precious. 

• In Magnolia, Ark., Odenthal helped build a pilot plant for direct lithium extraction (DLE). It’s a new technology that separates lithium from brine more effectively.  

“We develop technology, but you need to execute, and without people like Andy, we wouldn’t be able to make what our customers want,” says Keyur Shah, Albemarle’s vice president of strategic technology. “Look at DLE – it's the future of lithium production, and we’re now getting valuable technical data that will help us stay on the leading edge.”

Odenthal’s involvement usually begins when he’s presented with an idea on paper. From there, his work includes fleshing out the design, developing a 3D model of the plant, developing construction plans, selecting contractors, installing safety protocols and supervising construction.

Projects typically take several years to complete, but in Magnolia and La Negra, he got the satisfaction of staying there until the machinery started running. 

“It’s like graduating from college,” Odenthal says. “After four, five or six years of effort, you get to that final goal.” 

Then it’s on to the next project.