Advances and Prospects of Extracting and Recovering Lithium From Salt Lake Brines
SU Hui1,2,3, ZHU Zhaowu1,2, WANG Lina1,2, QI Tao1,2
1 Institute of Process Engineering Chinese Academy of Science, Hydrometallurgy Clean Production Technology National Engineering Laboratory, Beijing 100190 2 Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100190 3 School of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408
Abstract: In recent years, with the rapid development of portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, lithium has been increasingly used in the field of new energy materials. Its exploitation and utilization have caused much attention. Lithium mainly deposits in the hard-rock ores and salt lake brines, and among them, lithium reserves in salt lake brines account for more than 70%. The process of lithium recovery from salt lake brines is simple with low energy consumption compared with that from hard-rock ores since it avoids the complex process of ore treatment and conversion to transfer lithium from solid compounds into a solution. The process does not generate large amounts of acidic or alkaline solid wastes, so that it is clean and environmentally friendly. Lithium recovery from brines has become the main way to produce lithium in the world because it has obvious technical and economic advantages. In salt lake brines, large amounts of elements such as Na, K, B, Mg present together with Li. Therefore, complicated process is needed to separate and remove impurity ions for the lithium purification and production. It is particularly difficult in the separation of Li from large amount of Mg. As most salt lake brines outside China have low Mg content with a low Mg/Li ratio (Mg/Li(w/w)<20), traditional method of solar evaporation coupled with precipitation could be used for the lithium recovery. The process is simple with low cost. However, almost all salt lake brines have high Mg content with Mg/Li ratio higher than 20 in China, except Zabuye Salt Lake in Tibet area, which is one of carbonate type of brines with very low Mg/Li ratio. As aforementioned traditional method is not suitable for high Mg content brines due to the high reagent consumption, the development of new economical method is highly demanded and it has become a hot research topic. This is particularly true in China. At present, although a number of processes have been developed and commercially applied in China for the lithium recovery from salt lake brines with high Mg/Li ratios, such as calcination-selective leaching based method, solvent extraction based method, membrane separation based method and adsorption based method. Among them, the method based on calcination followed by selective leaching can achieve comprehensive utilization of various resources in the brine. However, it has serious disadvantages including large amount of water evaporation, high energy consumption, serious equipment corrosion and air pollution by HCl production. Although solvent extraction based method has its obvious advantages, such as continuous operation, high throughput capacity, low capital and operating cost, lithium stripping with strong acidic solution limits its wide applications. In addition, solvent loss by phase entrainment, crud formation etc., also hinders its application. The new advanced extraction system which can solve these problems is urgently needed for this method. Membrane separation based method is another commercially used method with the advantages including simple process, low reagent consumption, clean production without environmental impact. It also has its significant drawbacks such as high capital and operating cost, membrane poisoning and short service life. The alumina-based adsorbent have good selectivity for lithium over other impurities and it has been commercially applied for lithium recovery from high Mg content brines in a large scale in China. However, the adsorption method must be followed by other methods for lithium production. In overview, it is indicated that the methods based on solvent extraction and membrane separation are more prospective for the lithium recovery from salt lake brines containing high Mg concentration, and alumina-based adsorption method is more suitable for the case of low lithium content brines. Based on the analysis of the properties of brine resources, this paper summarizes the research status and features of typical methods mentioned above for lithium recovery from brines. The advantages and disadvantages of all mentioned methods have been discussed in detail. The review is especially focused on the recovery of lithium from salt lake brines with high Mg/Li ratios. The direction and separation of impurities in the process of lithium extraction was also discussed. In addition, the development trend of clean and efficient production of lithium from salt lake brines was predicted.
苏慧, 朱兆武, 王丽娜, 齐涛. 从盐湖卤水中提取与回收锂的技术进展及展望[J]. 材料导报, 2019, 33(13): 2119-2126.
SU Hui, ZHU Zhaowu, WANG Lina, QI Tao. Advances and Prospects of Extracting and Recovering Lithium From Salt Lake Brines. Materials Reports, 2019, 33(13): 2119-2126.
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2019, Vol. 33 
