Advanced Brine Processing to Enable U.S. Lithium Independence (CRADA Report)

Technical Report · Mon May 19 04:00:00 EDT 2025

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2574284· OSTI ID:2574284

Lipson, Albert ^[1]; Golam Hyder, A. H. M. ^[1]; Wasilk, Mason ^[1]; Willoughby, Collin ^[2]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
2. Albemarle Corporation, Charlotte, NC (United States)

Current production of LiOH, which is needed to make Li-ion battery cathode active materials, utilizes a multistep process including solar evaporation, precipitation with Na₂CO₃ and then conversion to LiOH using Ca(OH)₂. This process requires a large amount of land area for solar evaporation, the right weather conditions, and chemicals for the conversion process that result in NaCl and CaCO₃ waste products. The production of Ca(OH)₂ is very energy intensive and evolves significant quantities of CO₂. An alternative process flow utilizing direct lithium extraction techniques, followed by a chemical free conversion process can have benefits in reducing the needed land requirements and chemicals for traditional brine processing. There are many potential direct lithium extraction technologies that are currently being developed. The direct lithium extraction process from typical brine sources will produce a LiCl solution with some impurities including typically high concentrations of Na. This brine then needs to be converted to LiOH for use in battery cathode production. Ideally this conversion could occur without the use of additional chemicals. Electrochemistry can do this conversion either via electrolysis or bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BPED) to produce LiOH and HCl in solution. BPED utilized bipolar membranes to split water, which has a reduced potential as compared to splitting water at electrodes into hydrogen and oxygen gas. This reduced potential required results in a significant energy savings for BPED over electrolysis methods. This CRADA project aimed to develop such an integrated process using direct lithium extraction followed by BPED to produce a LiOH solution. That solution can then be crystallized into battery grade LiOH. In particular, Albemarle utilized a direct lithium extraction process to produce a concentrated LiCl solution that could be used for the BPED process. The BPED process was first tested using various LiCl solutions with impurity ions added at bench scale to understand the effects of impurities and determine processing parameters. Then testing was performed using the direct lithium extracted brine at the bench scale before scaling the process up. After the process was scaled up a long duration test was carried out to estimate the lifetime of the membranes, which is key to the economics of the BPED process.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Albemarle Corporation, Charlotte, NC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Sustainable Transportation. Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 2574284
• Report Number(s): ANL/AMD--25/1; 196642
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

25 ENERGY STORAGE
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis
Conversion
Lithium
Lithium Hydroxide