Lithium is seen as a key raw material for the next few decades, due to its increasing significance in electric energy storage media by means of lithium-ion accumulator batteries. Lithium compounds are presently extracted from minerals and from a few salt lake brines in Chile and Argentina, although large amounts of lithium remain unused. The goal of a research project by the company K-UTEC AG Salt Technologies (Sondershausen) was the development of a resource-efficient procedure for the direct extraction of the highly-soluble lithium salts lithium chloride and lithium sulfate from natural brine. The key step of the process is a fractional crystallization: lithium salts are extracted directly from the natural brines by means of »intelligent process management« and separation of the crystallized salts. This saves energy and eliminates raw material-intensive material conversion steps which were previously required.

The experimental work took place at the Salinas Grandes salt lake (Argentina) with lithium chloride extracted from natural brine there, and in the pilot plant of the K-UTEC AG. With the help of solar evaporation and technical preparatory steps, lithium chloride of a technical quality, with a purity level of 99 %, was successfully extracted. The economic assessment indicated that a system working in this manner can be operated economically and, in comparison to the conventional procedure, can use resources more  efficiently. The application of this approach to other natural brines containing lithium chloride is possible, but will require solution- and location-specific investigations, and a sufficiently high starting concentration of lithium.

Project implementation:
K-UTEC AG Salztechnologien
Am Petersenschacht 7
99706 Sondershausen
Telefon: 03632 | 610-0
Telefax: 03632 | 610-105
info@k-utec.de
www.k-utec.de

AZ 29240