Chemical Engineering June 2023 - 16

multiple lithiation and delithiation processes.
Each column cycle involves
loading the sorbent with lithium chloride
from brine, intermediate washing
to remove undesired ionic species
and final unloading of lithium chloride
ions. ORNL has scaled up the LDH
sorbent manufacture to kilogramscale
batches, and the team is prepared
to begin testing at geothermal
sites in the future.
Another crucial benefit of LDH sorbents
is the promise for reuse and recovery.
" LDH sorbents can be reused
after hundreds of runs. LDH sorbent
can also be recovered quickly if there
was any failure during extraction, since
we don't need to add any reagents
to delithiate, unlike ion-exchange
sorbents or other solvent-extraction
methods, " says Paranthaman. Also,
since they are based on aluminum,
rather than rare or precious metals,
overall system costs will be lower.
For the extraction of lithium from
geothermal brines, researchers at
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT;
Germany; www.kit.edu) and Energie
Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW; Karlsruhe,
Germany; www.enbw.com)
have developed an ion sieve based
on lithium-manganese oxide with a
spinel crystal structure. They have
tested the sieve using brines from the
Bruchsal geothermal plant operated
by EnBW in Germany's Upper Rhine
Graben region. Crucial to the sieve's
successful performance is the selection
of desorption solution, which releases
the adsorbed lithium from the
sieve. According to KIT, acetic acid
yielded the most promising results,
balancing lithium extraction efficacy
with adsorbent preservation. The next
steps will be to improve adsorption
capacity and proceed with scaleup
from the laboratory to the pilot scale.
Beyond brines
Another promising source of extracted
lithium is in wastewater from mining
operations. In Finland, Weeefiner Oy
(Jyväskylä, Finland; www.weeefiner.fi)
and Sensmet Oy (Oulu, Finland; www.
sensmet.com) have joined forces to
develop the Intelligent Recovery Unit
(IRU), a treatment solution to produce
minerals like lithium from the waters at
end-of-life mining sites. Typical treatment
processes for mine waters focus
on decontamination and precipitation,
which produce contaminantladen
sludge that can pose difficulties
with disposal.
Weeefiner's 4D Scavenger technology
is designed to extract dissolved
metals for reuse, so its application
can drastically reduce the downstream
water-treatment loads. For the
IRU platform, the 4D Scavenger technology
is combined with Sensmet's
µDOES analyzer, which can provide
realtime quantification of dissolved
metal concentrations, such as Ni, Co,
Li, Mn and Cu, in mining waters. In
the IRU, the analyzer measures metal
concentrations both before and after
treatment with the 4D Scavenger,
which supports automated process
optimization. The companies are now
collaborating with Rio Tinto (London,
U.K.; www.riotinto.com) to prepare a
field-ready version of the unit.
■
Mary Page Bailey
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JUNE 2023
http://www.enbw.com http://www.weeefiner.fi http://www.riotinto.com http://www.sensmet.com http://www.kit.edu http://adlinks.chemengonline.com/84648-09 http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering June 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering June 2023
