Novel method of lithium production from brines combining a battery material and sodium sulfite as a cheap and environmentally friendly reducing agent

Abstract

The growing increase in the global demand for lithium for the production of lithium batteries demands for the development of alternative, fast, environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective technologies for lithium production. Most lithium resources are in the form of brines, which are concentrated saline solutions containing lithium in the presence of an excess of other cations (primarily sodium, magnesium, and potassium). The use of lithium battery materials has been shown to be highly advantageous for the selective sequestration of lithium from brines, thus achieving the efficient separation of lithium from other cations and, with this, facilitating the production of the highly pure Li ₂CO ₃ required for the battery industry. The sequestration of lithium by the battery material can be driven by electricity or redox agents, and the latter has advantages in terms of the simplicity of the reactor design for large-scale production. A critical aspect in the use of redox agents is the cost and environmental compatibility. Here, we demonstrate the use of a novel redox reagent, sodium sulfite, that is cheap and non-toxic and induces fast lithium sequestration reactions.

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