A breakthrough has been made in the technology of extracting lithium from salt lakes in China: the output of lithium carbonate has more than doubled and the cost per ton has been reduced by more than 10,000 yuan.

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On December 18, the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association organized an evaluation meeting on scientific and technological achievements, and the multi-component collaborative solvent extraction-water stripping clean lithium extraction technology developed by the Institute of process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qi Tao and Zhu Zhaowu successfully passed the review. it provides a new way for the efficient and clean utilization of lithium resources in salt lakes with high mg / Li ratio.

Zhu Zhaowu, a researcher at the Institute of process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that compared with the traditional high acid stripping process, the actual output of lithium carbonate in a single production line of multi-component collaborative solvent extraction-water stripping clean lithium extraction technology has more than doubled, the direct production cost of lithium carbonate per ton has been reduced by more than 10,000 yuan, and the annual profit can reach hundreds of millions of yuan. It is estimated that the annual net profit of the 10,000-ton production line will reach more than 1 billion yuan.

At present, the technology of extracting lithium from salt lake is not as mature as that from ore, and about 80% of the proved lithium resources in China are salt lake type. "the lithium resource of Qinghai Salt Lake, which accounts for more than 50% of China's lithium reserves, has a high ratio of magnesium to lithium. Due to the similar properties of lithium and magnesium and the difficulty of separation, the cost of lithium extraction technology from the existing salt lake is high, and the production of lithium salt in China has long been dependent on imported lithium ores." Zhu Zhaowu said frankly.

Due to the uncertainty of overseas lithium resources, it has become a consensus in the industrial chain that domestic lithium resources must increase the proportion of self-supply. The country intends to vigorously develop salt lake lithium extraction technology. On May 16, the first meeting of the leading group on the preparation of the action plan for the construction of a world-class salt lake industrial base was held in Xining to deliberate and discuss the Action Plan for the Construction of a World-class Salt Lake Industrial Base (first draft).

Multi-component synergistic solvent extraction-water stripping clean lithium extraction technology has made a breakthrough, which means that the industrialization process of lithium extraction from salt lakes in China is a further step.

In April 2021, the technology carried out a pilot test with an annual output of 50 tons of lithium chloride in Qinghai Chaidamu Xinghua Lithium Salt Co., Ltd. so far, the pilot line has been running continuously and steadily for more than 7 months, exceeding the expected technical target. In September 2021, the kiloton production line was successfully launched, and the actual output of the production line exceeded 1800 tons / year, more than 80% of the design value of 1000 tons / year. It has been running smoothly for 3 months and is in good condition. At present, Qinghai Chaidamu Xinghua Lithium Salt Co., Ltd. has completed the technical transformation of the original three production lines and fully adopted this new technology, with an annual output of 8000 tons.

Tianyan survey data show that Qinghai Chaidamu Xinghua Lithium Salt Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dahua Chemical Co., Ltd., Yiwei Lithium can invest in two member enterprises of Dahua Chemical Industry. On July 9, Yiwei LiNeng also announced its intention to acquire a stake in Dahua Chemical.

The technology of extracting lithium from salt lake is far from the end.

It is worth noting that due to the different composition and composition of each salt lake, there is not a general salt lake lithium extraction technology that can be applied to the development of all salt lake lithium resources. Zhu Zhaowu said that salt lakes in each region need to find and develop lithium extraction technologies suitable for their own water quality characteristics.

Huaan Securities analyst Stone Forest said in a previous research report that in the future, technical research on lithium extraction from salt lakes will mainly focus on optimizing the front-end lithium extraction capacity and back-end lithium salt production. It is suggested that attention should be paid to the electrochemical de-intercalation method of the lithium industry in Central and South China, the improved adsorption method of Jiuwo Hi-Tech, and the bipolar membrane electrodialysis method used in the field of lithium hydroxide production.

It can be predicted that with the maturity of various adsorption, membrane separation, concentration and extraction technologies, lithium extraction from salt lakes will be gradually promoted to "continuous industrial production", and salt lake projects with lithium as the main products will also become more common. GE Jun, an analyst at Minmetals Securities, estimates that the total production capacity of lithium extraction from China's salt lakes is expected to increase from 100000 tons to 220000 tons between 2020 and 2025.

The lithium industry is in the super demand cycle brought about by the global energy revolution. In the future, a number of salt lake lithium extraction technologies will go hand in hand, which is expected to greatly increase the output of lithium extraction from salt lakes and reshape the price system of the global lithium industry.