PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS, v.15, no.20, pp.7690 - 7695
Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
Abstract
The demand for lithium has greatly increased with the rapid development of rechargeable batteries.
Currently, the main lithium resource is brine lakes, but the conventional lithium recovery process is time
consuming, inefficient, and environmentally harmful. The batteries have been recently used for lithium
recovery, and consist of lithium iron phosphate as a cathode. These batteries feature promising selectivity
10 between lithium and sodium, but they suffer from severe interference from coexisting magnesium ions, an
essential component in brine, which has prompted further study. This study reports on a highly selective
and energy-efficient lithium recovery system using a rechargeable battery that consists of a λ-MnO2
positive electrode and a chloride-capturing negative electrode. The system can be used to recover lithium
from brine even in the presence of magnesium ions as well as other dissolved cations. In addition, lithium
15 recovery from simulated brine is successfully demonstrated, consuming 1.0 Wh per 1 mole of lithium
recovery, using water similar to that from the artificial brine, which contains various cations (mole ratio:
Na/Li ≈ 15.7, K/Li ≈ 2.2, Mg/Li ≈ 1.9).