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Lithium Recovery from Brine Sources of Iran by Precipitation Method

Jandaghi, Mohammad Reaz | 2014

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 46456 (07)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Materials Science and Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Askari, Masoud
  7. Abstract:
  8. Lithium is one of the most commonly used metals in industry with a wide variety of applications including batteries, lubricating grease and pharmaceutical products. Demand for lithium is expected to rise with the increasing adoption of electric vehicles. Market reports have predicted that world lithium demand will increase by 2.5 times from 2010 to 2020. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop new sources of lithium to support this anticipated increase in demand. Lithium can be extracted from salt brine and lithium containing minerals as lithium compounds.
    Salt brines are the most abundant lithium sources available in the world, comprising about 60% of all known lithium deposits. Producing lithium by evaporating salt brine is also less costly than directly extracting it from lithium minerals. This makes salt brines as an important sources of lithium to meet future market demand in the world. Chemical composition of brine determines sufficient method for extraction of lithium from it.
    A major limitation of lithium extraction from salt brine is the difficulty in processing brine with a high magnesium to lithium (Mg/Li) ratio. It is important for the extracted lithium compounds to have low magnesium content to avoid magnesium contamination in the downstream products. This makes lithium extraction from salt lakes with a high Mg/Li ratio a difficult task, as additional steps and costs are incurred to reduce the magnesium content of the brine solution to an acceptable level. The additional cost varies directly with the Mg/Li ratio.
    This research was done on KHOR-BIYABANAK as very high Mg/Li salt brines in the world with proportion of magnesium to lithium about 300 and the main lithium source of Iran. In this regard caustic soda, ammonia, dolomite, calcium carbonate and lithium hydroxide were utilized as magnesium and boron removing agent and Sulfuric acid used for calcium exclusion from brine. Also Di sodium phosphate and di sodium carbonate were employed as precipitant for lithium phosphate and lithium carbonate production respectively. Furthermore effect of parameters like reaction time and temperature, solution rest time and amount of precipitants and how are added to brine on lithium recovery and final product purity were investigated. Results indicated that production of high purity lithium phosphate (99/9%) from KHOR-BIYABANAK's brine is achievable. But production of lithium carbonate is faces more problem compared with lithium phosphate because of higher solubility of lithium carbonate comparison to lithium phosphate and higher limit of lithium concentration in solution for lithium carbonate precipitation. So optimized condition for lithium carbonate precipitation reaction leads to production of 97% purity lithium carbonate.
  9. Keywords:
  10. Lithium ; Brine ; Precipitation ; Magnesium ; Lithium Extraction ; Lithium Phosphate

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