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US 12,584,192 B2Granted
Lithium purification and conversion
AssigneeSchlumberger Technology Corporation
InventorsGary W. Sams, Florence Binet, Rod William Shampine, Dominic Vincent Perroni
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Abstract
Lithium recovery processes are described using vaporization and conversion techniques. A vaporizer can be used to concentrate lithium and precipitate impurities. A conversion process can be used to replace anions in lithium bearing streams by adding a second anion and precipitating lithium in a salt with the second anion. Rotary separation can be used to separate the precipitated lithium salt.
Claims10
A method of recovering lithium from a brine source, the method comprising:
- extracting lithium from the brine source using an adsorption/desorption process during an extraction stage to form a lithium extract, wherein the extraction stage includes contacting a brine source stream with a lithium selective medium to load the medium with lithium and contacting an eluent stream with the lithium-loaded medium to form the lithium extract;
- concentrating the lithium extract during a concentration stage to yield a lithium concentrate stream, wherein the concentration stage includes using a membrane separation process with a plurality of membrane separations in series operated in counter-current format, wherein the membrane separation process includes a low-lithium concentration stream and high-lithium concentration stream flowing from membrane to membrane in opposite sequential orientations, wherein a dilute brine stream is obtained from the low-lithium concentration stream;
- recycling the dilute brine stream from the concentration stage to the eluent stream used during the extraction stage and/or to the brine source stream used during the extraction stage;
- heating the lithium concentrate stream via a heat exchanger positioned downstream from the concentration stage to yield a heated lithium concentrate stream;
- processing the heated lithium concentrate stream via a vaporizer positioned downstream from the heat exchanger, wherein a vaporized water stream and a lithium pre-conversion stream are obtained from a vaporization section of the vaporizer, the lithium pre-conversion stream comprising lithium salt, and wherein a precipitate stream precipitates in the vaporization section and settles in a precipitation section of the vaporizer, the precipitate stream comprising impurities;
- and
- channeling the vaporized water stream from the vaporizer to the heat exchanger positioned upstream from the vaporizer, wherein heat from the vaporized water stream is used via the heat exchanger to heat the lithium concentrate stream and yield the heated lithium concentrate stream that is then channeled to the vaporizer.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.