Migration Behavior of Lithium during Brine Evaporation and KCl Production Plants in Qarhan Salt Lake

Abstract

Lithium-brine is an important potential source of lithium. Much research and investigation has been carried out aimed at lithium recovery from brine. Although the distribution and occurrence status of lithium in brine have important implications for lithium recovery, few reports had correlated to this issue. In this article, a study was carried out to explore the lithium migration behavior during brine evaporation and KCl production process at Qarhan Salt Lake. The occurrence status of lithium both in fresh mined brine and residual brine after evaporation were also speculated by means of lithium concentration evaluation and theoretical calculation based on the Pitzer electrolyte solution theory. Results showed that, for Qarhan brine mined from the Bieletan region, most lithium was enriched in the residual brine during the brine evaporation process. The concentration of lithium in the residual brine could be more than 400 mg/L. More than 99.93% lithium ions in residual brine exist in free ions state and lithium does not precipitate from brine with a density of 1.3649 g/mL. The results also revealed that lithium concentration in wastewater discharged from KCl plants can reach a level of 243.8 mg/L. The investigation results provide a theoretical basis for comprehensive development and utilization of lithium resources in Qarhan Salt Lake.

Recent Advances in the Lithium Recovery from Water Resources: From Passive to Electrochemical Methods

“…Accurate examples of this are the Uyuni brine, in Bolivia, and the Chaerhan Salt Lake, in China. [ 32,33 ] The former, although hosting one of the biggest deposits of lithium in the world, also presents a very high magnesium content. In this case, as the pilot scale reported by Flexer in 2018 demonstrated, a high grade final product is difficult to obtain.…”

Modeling of the Refractive Index for the Systems MX+H2O, M2X+H2O, H3BO3+MX+H2O, and H3BO3+M2X+H2O. M = K+, Na+, or Li+ and X = Cl− or SO42−

“…R is calculated from Equation (13). Vm is estimated from Equation (2) using the solution density calculated from Equation (16). It is proposed based on [42,43].…”

“…Brines containing these valuable resources are also located in other salt lakes in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, China [15,16], and the USA [11,17], thus the monitoring of brine processing by the refractive index could be used where the solar evaporation process is applied. To monitor the brines' processing using the refractive index, experimental data of the chemical systems involved are required [18].…”

Hydrogeological constraints for the genesis of the extreme lithium enrichment in the Salar de Atacama (NE Chile): A thermohaline flow modelling approach

“…The existence of Li salts as a source of Li has never been reported in the geological record of evaporites in the Central Andes (Risacher and Fritz, 2009). Indeed, although K, Mg and B are known to accumulate in soluble salts (chlorides, sulfates and borates) under advanced evaporation stages, Li cannot enter the crystalline structures of the salts, and the majority remains in the liquid phase (Garrett, 2004;Pueyo et al, 2017;Song et al, 2017). Thus, to precipitate as LiCl, the brine must evaporate up to 38 % w/w LiCl, beyond the formation of sylvite, carnallite and bischofite (Garrett, 2004).…”