A review on the extraction of lithium from its minerals - Case study: Lithium extraction from spodumene concentrate using sulfation roasting under ball milling conditions

Subject Areas : journal of New Materials

Nader Setoudeh ¹ , ataollah nosrati ² , Nicholas J. Welham ³

1 - Materials Engineering Department- School of Engineering- Yasouj University- Yasouj- 75918-74831, Iran
2 - Chemical Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Australia, Perth
3 - Chemical Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Australia, Perth Welham Metallurgical Services, South Lake, Australia

Received: 2020-03-31 Accepted : 2020-09-19 Published : 2020-08-22

Keywords: Leaching, Ball milling, Lithium minerals, Spodumene concentrate, Sodium sulfate,

Abstract :

Due to significant characters of metallic lithium, many research and studies have been done on the extraction and processing of lithium form brine sources and its pegmatite deposits. Lepidolite, spodumene, petalite and zinnwaldite are the most important lithium minerals however, spodumene is the most abundant lithium minerals containing pegmatite. Lithium production has substantially increased in the past few years due to demand for lithium electronic batteries. This article is a part of research project entitled “lithium ore processing” which was undertaken during sabbatical leave at Edith Cowan University (Australia). Different processes and routs for extraction of lithium form its minerals are studied in this article. Some results of sulfation roasting with sodium sulfate for spodumene concentrate are investigated in this article under ball milling conditions. The experimental results showed that roasting reactions at temperature of 1000 ºC results in formation of the water-soluble phase, i.e. lithium sodium sulfate (LiNaSO4), in the 5 h milled mixture of sodium sulfate-spodumene. The α to ß phase transition in the spodumene concentrate occurred at lower temperature in 5 h milled samples comparing to the un-milled sample. The results showed that ball milling plays significant role in the roasting reactions stage for spodumene-sodium sulfate mixture. The produced calcine from roasting of 5 h milled mixture of spodumene-sodium sulfate can dissolve in hot water during leaching stage and water has significant advantages as leachant agent. The dissolution of lithium reached to 93% for the 5 h milled samples after heating at 1000°C in this research.

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