Lithium extraction process and apparatus
AssigneeU.S. Borax Inc.
InventorsAmit Patwardhan, Sandip Shinde, Allen Wattenbarger, Daniel Suasnabar
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Abstract
A method of extracting lithium from a lithium-bearing material including: (i) mixing the lithium-bearing material, gypsum, a sulfur-containing material, and a calcium-containing material and forming a feed mixture having a moisture content of at least 20 wt %; (ii) drying the feed mixture to form a dried mixture having a moisture content of less than 20 wt %; (iii) roasting the dried mixture and forming a roasted mixture including a water-soluble lithium compound; and (iv) leaching lithium from the water-soluble lithium compound and forming a lithium-containing leachate by mixing the aqueous solution and the water-soluble lithium compound.
Claims18
A method of extracting lithium from a lithium-bearing material including:
- mixing the lithium-bearing material having a moisture content of at least 20 wt %, (i) gypsum, a sulfur-containing material, and a calcium-containing material and forming a feed mixture;
- (ii) optionally granulating the feed mixture to form a granulated mixture;
- (iii) drying the feed or granulated mixture to form a dried mixture having a moisture content of less than 20 wt %;
- (iv) roasting the dried mixture and forming a roasted mixture including a water-soluble lithium compound;
- and
- (v) leaching lithium from the water-soluble lithium compound and forming a lithium-containing leachate by mixing an aqueous solution and the water-soluble lithium compound.
The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the lithium-bearing material has a lithium concentration ranging from 1-3 g/kg of lithium bearing material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.