Lithium

Lithium Extraction Processing System

Although lithium is quite plentiful around the world, only a few areas exist where the concentrations are high enough for efficient mining or brine extraction. And with the new economy’s voracious demand for lithium, the best technologies need to be utilized to effectively extract this resource.

Unfortunately, many of the current practices for lithium production create undesirable side effects to the environment. Large evaporation ponds waste space, create an environmental problem for the land and wildlife, and do not provide any reuseable water that can be used in the process of making usable lithium. Current practices simply will not be allowed in burgeoning locations such as Nevada where lithium production seems to be on the rise.

Direct Lithium Extraction

One of the recent technological advances is direct lithium extraction: a method by which highly selective absorbents attract lithium from groundwater or geothermal brines while rejecting other cations such as calcium and magnesium. This process preconcentrates lithium which makes lithium brine extraction possible.

Xylem’s technology, the Vacom system, fits well as a key system for processing lithium.

First of all, lithium carbonate, a common salt form for lithium requires further concentration and purification through a well-designed non-scaling, non-fouling evaporator and crystallizer all-in-one system. Combining evaporation and crystallization in one system reduces footprint and energy consumption.

Secondly, other necessary technologies such as reverse osmosis membranes also require concentrating reject streams as part of the process, another area where a Vacom system can be used. And finally, an efficient evaporator / crystallizer system creates high quality distilled water that can be reused in the many processing steps or disposed of in a safe, environmentally friendly manner unlike large land evaporation ponds.

Proprietary heat exchangers in

Lithium Processing

The Vacom system uses a combination of proprietary and patent pending technology related to high shear, high velocity, and submerged boiling circulation of the water stream; and the system uses proprietary designed heat exchangers which are unique to any other system. These advancements allow the system to concentrate well past salt saturation levels and precipitate salt crystals without using antiquated salt seeding processes. No system comes close to the Vacom performance level.

Xylem’s technology used for Lithium processing: