Industrial methods for the integrated processing of minerals that contain beryllium and lithium

Wider use of lithium and beryllium is being held up by the cost of these elements, the poor environmental rating of the hydrometallurgical methods used to obtain them, and the fact that they can be extracted only from a limited range of raw materials – two or three silicates. The objective of the project discussed in this article – a project that is important to the mining and metallurgical industries – is to expand the range of raw materials that can serve as sources of lithium and beryllium. This will require the development of new methods of recovering these elements that are safe and cost-effective.