In recent years, several methods have been reported to
extract
lithium (Li) from spodumene. However, the majority of them still require
the transformation of the naturally occurring spodumene phase (α)
to the more reactive crystalline phase (β) by calcination at
1100 °C. To address the economic drawbacks and high greenhouse
gas emission of this phase transformation, this study aimed to directly
extract Li from α-spodumene. Nine reagents of alkali metals
(Group IA), alkaline earth metals (Group IIA), and ammonium (NH4
+) salts were examined for roasting and phase transformation
of α-spodumene to water- or acid-soluble phases. For this purpose,
sequential roasting, water leaching, and acid leaching were performed.
The leaching recovery results showed that the order of roasting efficacy
of the three reagent categories is Group IA > Group IIA > >
NH4
+. 71 and 88% of water leaching and total
leaching
recovery values, correspondingly, were achieved by the NaOH roasting–water
leaching–acid leaching process, under the nonoptimized conditions
of a roasting temperature of 320 °C, an NaOH: spodumene ratio
of 1.5:1, and a roasting time of 2 h. Thermodynamics analysis by FactSage
demonstrated that α-spodumene was decomposed to Na2SiO3, Na4SiO4, NaAlO2, and Li3NaSiO4 by NaOH and to NaAlSiO4, Na2SiO3, and Li3NaSiO4 by Na2CO3. Eh-pH diagrams calculated
by HSC Chemistry revealed that despite the low solubility of lithium
silicates in water, they dissolve at high pH (>12.5), explaining
the
high water leaching recovery of Li. In future studies, the optimization
of the process parameters will be conducted to maximize the Li recovery
in water leaching, while recovering other valuable elements as byproducts.