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Chlorination Roasting of Li-Bearing Minerals and Slags: Combined Evaluation of Lithium Recovery Ratio and Lithium Chloride Product Purity

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Abstract

Lithium was recovered from both Li-bearing minerals (kunzite, hiddenite, and lepidolite) and Li-bearing slags, using a chlorination roasting process at 1100 °C under an argon atmosphere. According to the XRD analysis, gehlenite (Ca2Al2SiO7) and lithium aluminate (LiAlO2) constitute the main phases in the LIB recycling slag. The major mineral phases detected were spodumene (LiAlSi2O6) in the kunzite and hiddenite samples, and lepidolite [K(Li,Al)3(Si,Al)4O10(F,OH)2] in the lepidolite sample, respectively. After the chlorination roasting, 47%, 38%, 56%, and 90% of the available Li was extracted as a LiCl product from, respectively, kunzite, hiddenite, lepidolite, and LIB recycling slag. The Li recovery ratio is dependent on the Li2O content, the type of Li-containing phase and the impurities in each of the Li-containing materials. In addition, the distribution of the main impurity elements—such as K, Na, Mn, and Fe—between the vaporized chloride gas and the solid residue after the chlorination roasting was analyzed to evaluate the purity of the obtained Li product (i.e., LiCl). The LiCl·H2O phase was identified in the condensed product sample due to the strong hygroscopicity of the LiCl product. The LiCl purity was measured to be 89%, 93%, 77%, and 22% for the chlorination products extracted from the LIB recycling slag, kunzite, hiddenite and lepidolite samples, respectively. The experimental results indicate that especially the Li-ion battery (LIB) recycling slag shows a great potential as an alternative (secondary) Li-bearing resource for the production of high-purity, “technical-grade” LiCl (~ 90%), adopting a chlorination roasting process. Finally, even in the case a pure LiCl product is obtained from the chlorination roasting process, a further refining process is required to purify the “technical-grade” LiCl quality (e.g. 90% purity) into a battery-grade quality (> 99.5% purity).

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for the KU Leuven C3 project “Solvometallurgy-based Process for Battery-grade Lithium Refining (SOLVOLi+)” (3E200922) from Industrieel Onderzoeksfonds (IOF), KU Leuven.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 44, 3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Jungho Heo, Peter Tom Jones, Bart Blanpain & Muxing Guo

  2. Mineral-Based Lithium Extraction Cell, Lithium Ion Battery (LiB) Raw Materials Research Group, LiB Materials R&D Laboratories, POSCO HOLDINGS, N.EX.T Hub, 67 Cheongam-ro, Pohang-si, 37673, South Korea

    Jungho Heo

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Heo, J., Jones, P.T., Blanpain, B. et al. Chlorination Roasting of Li-Bearing Minerals and Slags: Combined Evaluation of Lithium Recovery Ratio and Lithium Chloride Product Purity. J. Sustain. Metall. 9, 1353–1362 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-023-00729-7

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