Prospect of Lithium Resources Supply and Demand

1 Introduction The conflict between resources and the environment has been increasingly outstanding as the population,economy and society around the globe have developed rapidly since the 21st century.An important challenge that the human

LITHIUM RESOURCES IN CHINA'S SALT LAKES & ITS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

This article gives an introductory exposition of the growing demands of lithium on the market against the background of current rapid S&Tprogress and booming economic development, the worldwide trend in the production of lithium salts and the rich lithium reserves in China’s salt lakes as well as the brilliant prospects for its exploitation in the future. The article proposes that a sustainable exploitation of the lithium trove from these salt lakes should be rooted in comprehensive utilization of the trove and take a long-term approach, emphasizing high value proliferation in developing quality lithium-based products. Also, it expresses some tentative ideas on building demonstration bases for all-round exploitation and utilization of the salt lake resources and the development of lithium cells.

The Metallogenetic Regularities of Lithium Deposits in China

Lithium resources support the development of high-technology industries. China has abundant lithium resources which are mainly distributed in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and Jiangxi. Salt lakes in China have significant lithium reserves, but lithium is mainly produced from hard rock lithium deposits because the extraction from salt lakes requires further improvements. The hard rock lithium deposits mainly occur in granitic pegmatite in the Altay region of Xinjiang and the Jiajika deposit in western Sichuan Province; they mainly formed in the Mesozoic and occurred in a relatively stable stage during orogenic processes. On the basis of the information from 151 lithium deposits or spots, 14 lithium metallogenic series were identified, and granitic pegmatite, granite, and sedimentary types were considered to be the main prediction types of lithium resources. Twelve lithium mineralization belts were divided and a series of maps showing the lithium metallogenetic regularity in China were drawn. We conclude that the hard rock and brine type of lithium resources possibly have a similar lithium source related to magmatism. The mctallogenic features of the lithium in China were related with the distinct history of tectonic-magmatic activity in China. This study benefits the assessment of, and prospecting for, lithium resources in China.

Negatively charged organic–inorganic hybrid silica nanofiltration membranes for lithium extraction

Effective extraction of lithium from high Mg2+/Li+ratio brine lakes is of great challenge.In this work,organic–inorganic hybrid silica nanofiltration(NF)membranes were prepared by dip-coating a 1,2-bis(triethoxysilyl)ethane(BTESE)-derived separation layer on tubular TiO2 support,for efficient separation of LiC l and MgCl2 salt solutions.We found that the membrane calcinated at 400°C(M1–400)could exhibit a narrow pore size distribution(0.63–1.66 nm)owing to the dehydroxylation and the thermal degradation of the organic bridge groups.All as-prepared membranes exhibited higher rejections to LiCl than to MgCl2,which was attributed to the negative charge of the membrane surfaces.The rejection for LiCl and MgCl2 followed the order:LiCl N MgCl2,revealing that Donnan exclusion effect dominated the salt rejection mechanism.In addition,the triplecoated membrane calcined at 400°C(M3–400)exhibited a permeability of about 9.5 L·m-2·h-1·bar-1 for LiCl or MgCl2 solutions,with rejections of 74.7%and 20.3%to LiCl and MgCl2,respectively,under the transmembrane pressure at 6 bar.Compared with the previously reported performance of NF membranes for Mg2+/Li+separation,the overall performance of M3–400 is highly competitive.Therefore,this work may provide new insight into designing robust silica-based ceramic NF membranes with negative charge for efficient lithium extraction from salt lakes.