Lithium recovery using aqueous sources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2023364560-A1
Application number	US-202318311966-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 4, 2023
Priority date	May 4, 2022
Publication date	Nov 16, 2023
Grant date	—

Abstract

Described herein are methods of recovering lithium from dilute lithium sources. The methods include concentrating a dilute aqueous lithium source to yield an extraction feed having an extraction lithium concentration; extracting lithium from the extraction feed using direct lithium extraction in an extraction stage to yield a lithium intermediate; concentrating a stream obtained from the lithium intermediate in a concentration stage to yield a lithium concentrate; and converting lithium in the lithium concentrate to lithium hydroxide.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A method of recovering lithium from a lithium source, comprising:
extracting lithium from an extraction feed using direct lithium extraction in an extraction stage to yield a lithium intermediate; concentrating the lithium intermediate or a derivative thereof in an impurity preparation stage to yield an impurity stage feed; and treating the impurity stage feed or a derivative thereof in an impurity stage to remove impurities and to form a purified lithium stream.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the impurity preparation stage comprises a counter-flow reverse osmosis process to concentrate the lithium intermediate.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the impurity preparation stage includes using a first concentration process to yield the impurity stage feed and a first low TDS stream, wherein the first concentration process includes counter-flow reverse osmosis.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the first concentration process further comprises a reverse osmosis operation that yields a preconcentrated stream and the low TDS stream, and routing the preconcentrated stream to the counter-flow reverse osmosis operation.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the impurity preparation stage comprises an evaporator to concentrate the lithium intermediate.

6 . The method of claim 1 , including concentrating and/or purifying an aqueous lithium source to yield the extraction feed having a selected lithium concentration.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising concentrating the purified lithium stream or a derivative thereof in a concentration stage to yield a lithium concentrate.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the purified lithium stream contains residual impurities, and concentrating the purified lithium stream in the concentration stage comprises increasing concentration of one or more impurities in the purified lithium stream to the solubility limit of the one or more impurities in the purified lithium stream, so that the impurities precipitate, and wherein the method further comprises removing solids from the lithium concentrate to yield a purified lithium concentrate.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising converting lithium in the purified lithium stream, lithium concentrate, the purified lithium concentrate or a derivative thereof to a lithium product.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein concentrating the lithium intermediate or a derivative thereof in the impurity preparation stage comprises increasing concentration of one or more impurities to at least 90% of the solubility limit of the one or more impurities in the lithium intermediate or the derivative thereof.

11 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising obtaining one or more removed streams in at least one of the impurity preparation stage, impurity stage or concentration, and recycling the one or more removed streams into one of the aqueous lithium source, extraction feed, lithium intermediate, impurity stage feed or purified lithium stream to manage the concentration of lithium or to manage a ratio of lithium ions to impurity ions.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein direct lithium extraction includes withdrawing lithium ions from the extraction feed to a withdrawal medium and recovering lithium ions from the withdrawal medium using a recovery fluid.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein direct lithium extraction includes a lithium selective electrochemical separation process.

14 . A method of recovering lithium from an aqueous lithium source, comprising:
separating lithium using a lithium selective electrochemical separation process; and concentrating lithium using a concentration process comprising counter-flow reverse osmosis operation.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the counter-flow reverse osmosis operation receives an effluent of the lithium selective electrochemical separation process or a derivative thereof.

16 . The method of claim 14 , including concentrating the aqueous lithium source using the concentration process to obtain an extraction feed, wherein the lithium selective electrochemical separation process receives the extraction feed or a derivative thereof.

17 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the counter-flow reverse osmosis process comprises flowing a stream to be concentrated into a plurality of units in series, each unit having a semi-permeable membrane defining a first volume where non-permeating material collects and a second volume where permeating material collects, wherein material from the first volume of a first unit is routed to the first volume of a second unit in series with the first unit, and material from the second volume of the first unit is routed to a third unit in series with the first unit in a counter-flow direction with the material from the first volume.

18 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising, prior to concentrating lithium using a counter-flow reverse osmosis process, forming a preconcentrated lithium stream and a low TDS stream using a reverse osmosis process, routing the preconcentrated lithium stream to the counter-flow reverse osmosis operation, and recycling the low TDS stream.

19 . The method of claim 18 , including recycling the low TDS stream to the lithium selective electrochemical separation process.

Assignees

• Schlumberger Technology Corp

Inventors

• Sams Gary W
• Perroni Dominic Vincent
• Nirgudkar Prasanna
• Binet Florence
• Shampine Rod William
• Verma Sandeep
• Zhang Wenlin

Classifications

• C22B3/24

  by adsorption on solid substances, e.g. by extraction with solid resins · CPC title

• B01D2317/02

  Elements in series · CPC title

• B01D2315/24

  Counter-current operation · CPC title

• B01D2311/263

  Chemical reaction · CPC title

• B01D2311/26

  Further operations combined with membrane separation processes · CPC title