Purification of industrial grade lithium chloride for the recovery of high purity battery grade lithium carbonate

Linneen, Nicholas; Bhave, Ramesh; Woerner, Douglas

doi:10.1016/j.seppur.2018.05.020

Title: Purification of industrial grade lithium chloride for the recovery of high purity battery grade lithium carbonate

Journal Article · Wed May 09 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Separation and Purification Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2018.05.020· OSTI ID:1503997

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^[1]; Woerner, Douglas ^[2]

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Due to lithium’s high energy along with other exceptional characteristics, lithium demand across many industries is rising, specifically for Li-batteries. Thus, a sufficient supply of high purity lithium is vital in order for these significant technologies to develop. In the current work, industrial grade lithium chloride has been successfully treated with four simple precipitation steps to obtain a high purity battery grade lithium carbonate of >99.95%. The LiCl starting solutions contained K, Na, Mg, Ca, Cu, Ni, and Fe chloride contaminants and solutions of 2.5 to 10 M were simulated. The heavier metals and the majority of Mg were removed in a single step with an increase in pH. The removal of Ca and remaining Mg was executed by sodium oxalate addition where the calcium levels of the 10 M were able to be reduced to 5–6 ppm in solution. It appeared that the higher molarity and ionic strength of the LiCl solution aided in obtained higher degrees of impurity removal. Lastly, high purity Li₂CO₃ was obtained by first precipitating from brine solution, followed by a second purification step with pressurized CO₂. The second step allowed for the removal of entrapped Na and K after the first precipitation, resulting in >99.95 wt% purity Li₂CO₃.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1503997

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1702198

Journal Information:: Separation and Purification Technology, Vol. 214, Issue C; ISSN 1383-5866

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 29 works

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