Bluestar Lehigh Engineering Institute Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Sinochem Group Co., Ltd. (Sinochem Group), and its research partners recently made great technological breakthroughs in extracting lithium from salt lake brine.
Bluestar built the world’s first industrial demonstration line to extract lithium from salt lakes’ lithium precipitation brine, achieving a 10,000-ton grade of lithium carbonate extraction. This achievement filled the gap in the large-scale lithium extraction technology.
Salt lakes are one of the important lithium sources in China, and there are several means of extracting lithium from salt lake brine. The extraction method in the demonstration line is effective when used in certain types of brine and can precisely separate lithium from them, thus reducing the overall cost of the extraction process.
For over a year since the demonstration line began operating stably, the lithium recovery rate has remained over 98 percent, increasing the project’s overall lithium resource recovery rate by more than 15 percent and reducing costs by 30 percent. Its water and energy consumption is 30 percent lower than the industrial standards. To date, more than 9,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate have been produced, generating more than 600 million yuan ($86.90 million) in additional output value.
(Executive editor: Yuan Ting)
