Lithium carbonates production process

According to different sources of raw materials, the production process of lithium carbonates can be divided into salt lake brine extraction and ore extraction.

At present, other countries mainly use the salt lake brine extraction process to produce lithium carbonates technical grade, while my country mainly uses the solid ore extraction processFrom the perspective of process characteristics, the ore extraction process is relatively mature, but the ore extraction process has high energy consumption, heavy pollution, and high cost;

The advantages of extracting lithium from salt lake brine are high lithium carbonates technical grade and low cost, but the disadvantage is the technical difficulty, especially the purification of battery-grade lithium carbonate.

In terms of extraction technology, the ore extraction method and the salt lake extraction method are very different. The ore extraction method uses spodumene as raw material. The main processes for preparing lithium carbonate include sulfuric acid method, mixed sintering method of spodumene and sulfate, sodium carbonate pressure leaching method, chloride roasting method, limestone roasting method, etc.

The lithium extraction process from salt lake brine refers to the extraction of lithium carbonate and other lithium salt products from lithium-containing salt lake brine.

The current global salt lake brine extraction technologies mainly include precipitation methods (carbonate precipitation method, aluminate precipitation method, boron magnesium boron lithium coprecipitation method), calcination leaching method, carbonization method, solvent extraction method, ion exchange method, and ETC.

Among them, solvent extraction method and ion exchange method have not yet achieved large-scale industrial application.