Sodium Ion batteries, page-33

No mention of geothermal extraction from Ganfeng, wonder why, low mg/L leading to high capex per ton, given the lower yield. Chinese know that, as have been at it for decades, they know the tradeoffs....

Dialogue with the chairman of Ganfeng Lithium: Comprehensive analysis of lithium extraction technology

Author: WuYu

2021-08-11 15:00

What is the current route of thefour lithium technologies?Salt Lake Li, with downstream demand so strong, how can the supply side meet future demand?

Jia Bin: Li Liangbin (Chairman of Li FengLithium Industry).

BACKGROUND:The price of lithiumcarbonate and lithiumhydroxide have continued to rise sharply thisyear. Among them, the price of lithium carbonatein domestic batteries rose from 52,000yuan/ton to91,000yuan/ton,an increase of up to 75%,andthe price of lithium hydroxide in battery grade increased from 48,700yuan/ton to97,500yuan/ton,an increase of nearly doubling. Due to the continued strong demand for lithiumsalts, upstreamlithiumconcentrates fetched an all-time high of $1,250/tonne on Pilbara's new BMXelectronic trading platformonJuly30. The chairman of Li-LiIndustryvisited Wall Street to interact with the audience and answer questions on thecurrent technical route and development of lithium, as well as thecontradiction and response between supply and demand.

LiveMinutes:

1. fourlithium-lifting techniques

Thereare currently 4lithium-raising technologies, namely lithium-pfizerlithium, mica lithium, brine lithium and clay lithium.The first three of them have been industrialized, and clay lithium is expected tobeindustrialized by 2023-2024.

2. Salt Lakelithium technology line

SaltLake lithium according to different brine will usea completely different route, only in China's Salt Lake, Qinghai and Tibet SaltLake use of different technical routes, foreign salt lakes due todifferent lithium content willalso use different methods:

1) Sun-distributingmethod: foreign countries such as Chile on the use of moretraditional methods, because of its high content of lithiumbrine, magnesium content of impurities, extraction is simple, sothe use of traditional classic sun, the domestic Tibetan Zabuye Salt Lake isalso the use of the method of tanning;

2)Adsorption method: adsorption technique has graduallymatured and achieved industrialization, especially in the case of high magnesium lithium ratio is very advantageous, Charhan Salt Lake magnesiumlithium ratio of more than100:1issuitable for the use of adsorption method. Qinghai's Lanke lithium industry isalso using adsorption method, the recent Chinese Baowu stay in Zabuye, Tibet,also plans to switch to adsorption method;

3) Electrodialysis method: mainly used in DongtaiSalt Lake;

4)Membrane method: used in Xitai SaltLake;

5)Extraction method: Dahua uses more.

Atpresent, these technical routes in China have achieved industrialization, thefuture through continuous technological progress, adsorption methodcompetitiveness will be stronger, because the advantages of adsorption methodis through the increase in yield, adsorbent efficiency is higher, fasterdynamics, lower cost, and lithium yieldis high, this is the main researchdirection in the future.

3. four ways to carry lithiumratio

Thereis no difference between lithium salts produced by different lithium-liftingmethods, ore and brine lithium is only someimpurity indicators are not the same, like ore lithiumsuch as lithium industry sulfuric acid index is high, brinelithium halogen ion is high. But the quality can be purified through theprocess to achieve quality consistency, such as lithium carbonate through deepcarbonation purification, lithium hydroxide can also be through therecrystallization process to improve product quality and cost improvement, will not be due to differences in methods leading todifferences in the quality of lithium.

1) Orelithium: ore method is now relatively mature, the previousXinjiang lithium salt plant using limestone, the disadvantage is1:3limestoneratio calcination, the overall return will be relativelylow, now the mainstream method is sulfuric acid method. The main cost oflithium ore is the purchase of raw materials, and the direct processing cost is actually lower than brine.

2) Brinelithium:the overall cost ofbrine is still low, because brine is owned and ore ispurchased upstream,but separately the processing costs are higher, so processing costs arebasically complete costs. And through the addition of a process,the product to achieve high-quality technology is not a problem at present,many domestic enterprises can do.

3) Mica lithium:mica lithium is the technology of Jiangxi lithium salt plant, before lithium mica4.4 to 4.5taste, higher than so you can use limestone method, through1:3limestonecalcination. Now the mineral grade decline,lithium mica grade is about 2.2, so limestone method is not suitable,generally using sulfatemethod,lithium micasodiumsulfate calciumsulphate, sulphatecalcination, the current doing is better.

4) Clay lithium:currentlynotindustrialized, in principle, there are three methods, sulfuric acid method(high impurity content, the impact on the environment will be a little larger),sulfate method (similar to mica lithium,lithium leaching rate ofabout95%)andcookingmethod(high yield but higher cost).

4. domesticsalt lakes and mica lithium expansion “difficulty”?

SaltLake Lithium: Globally, the quality of salt lakes abroad isbetter, especially Salt Lakes in Chile, with a lithium content of more than 1000mg/L,anda lithium-magnesium ratio of1:3.Domestically,the brine grade is relatively low, the original halogen30-50mg/L oflithium content, which leads to the cost of investment expansion will be very high, theconstruction of a 10,000tons of equipment may cost500-800million. Then the concentration ofSalt Lake in China is low, the taste is also low, so that domestic expansionwill also be subject to resource constraints more, subject to the amount ofeffective brine, it is difficult to make a large scale out.

However,China's lithium technology is very advanced, a variety of technical means suchas adsorption method, membrane method, electro dialysis method, extractionmethod are China's most advanced, other countries to learn from China. Anddomestic enterprises if to build factories in salt lakes abroad, the overallcost of foreign construction is actually higher, such as Argentina siteconstruction is domestic equipment or even photovoltaic power generationequipment are domestic buy to Argentina, but resources such as natural gascheaper than domestic, other costs are not very good comparison, if accessoriesare domestic purchases, will increase freight and customs costs, costs may alsobe a little higher.

Micalithium:domestic mica'soriginal mine grade is relatively low, can reach more than 0.8%ofthe mine is particularly small, if the standard is lowered to0.3%and0.4%,althoughthe mine is more,but the yield is lower, some use2.2 tons lithiumoxide ore to produce lithium bicarbonate and lithium hydroxide,so theproduction of lithium mica will be limited by grade. If you use0.4of taste of the mine, 8 tons of raw ore to make1ton of concentrate, 25 tons of refined minerals to1ton of lithium carbonate, combined with 200 tons of refinedminerals a ton of lithium carbonate, obviously the lower the taste will lead togreater difficulty in production.

5. environmental protection on thelithium way of theimpact

ESGimplementation of the entire industry will have a great impact, China is alsoproposed carbon peak, carbon-neutraltarget. So that lithium needs to make somechanges, to save energy, reduce the use of water resources. Like Weifeng, thereis a water recycling project that recycles more than 1million tonsof water. At the same time on energy conservation and environmental protectionalso has a development effort, such as the use of photovoltaic powergeneration without thermal power generation. See threespecific ways to lift lithium:

1)SaltLake lithium: There are certain restrictions,but compared to the lighter impact, salt fieldconstruction would have considered the comprehensive use of brine elements,such as Chilean brine development is the first to raise potassium and thenlithium, such as the use of adsorbent method, adsorption is discharged into thesalt field, did not increase organic matter, did not increase other impurities,so there is no impact on the salt field, from an environmental point of view isno impact;

2) Mica lithium:theimpact is greater, because mica contains fluorine, need tostrengthen the fluorine process, otherwise the release of fluorine will pollutethe environment, and because mica lithium is currentlyusing sulphuric acid method, so waste slag contains sodium,potassium, calcium, etc., for the use of these waste cement industry is alsounfavorable, and the amount of waste is gradually increasing the cementindustry digestion capacity is limited, the remaining slag still needs to betreated;

3)Orelithium: there are not as many impurities as mica lithiumin the waste slag, only hydrogen in it, but in energy consumption(natural gas and gas), exhaust emissions, water emissions have some impact;

6. lithiumresourcescontinue to be in short supply

Demandside: From the secondhalf of this year positive materials, especially iron phosphate lithiumexpansion rate, lithium salt demand increased, the situation of undersupplywill continue to maintain, even before2030 hasnot seen a particularly large supply will lead to oversupplysituation, the current situation is very conducive to the development oflithium salt, the price is also expected to maintain in therange of 100,000-120,000yuan/ton.

Suppliers: ForeignAustralian Galaxy, Tyson and Pilbara can carry out stable supply, the futuredoes not rule out that they will gradually release capacity in 2-3years.At the same time, Africa Mali, Congo (DRC) and Brazil are also expected to startreleasing lithium flint in 2023,likethe Democratic Republic of the Congo AVZ reservesare particularly large, the original mine more than200milliontons, the overall supply of lithium willincrease in the future, butitis still difficult to balance with demand.

7. solid-statebatteries and sodium-ion batteries on lithium

Solid-statebatteries: The development of solid-statebatteries has a positive impact on lithiumresources, andthe commercialization of pure solid-state batteries has a long history and may notbe available until2028-2030. However, mixing solid-state batteriescan improve battery performance by increasing energy density and enhancingsafety performance through lithium metal and reduced electrolytes.

At thesame time, because the negative pole of mixed solid-statebattery is made of lithium metal, the positive polechanges little, the electrolyte uses solid electrolyte, and the solidelectrolyte is generally oxygenated or vulcanizedsolid electrolyte, so its lithium content will be more.

Sodiumion battery: the development of sodium battery demand forlithium has a certain degree of inhibition, but from the currentoverall view of sodium ionbattery is not suitable for all applications, in energystorage or two-wheelers can be used, but in many otherareasthere are certain limitations, suchas mobile phones, from the original only need tocharge once a day to half a day to charge, the userexperience may decline.

In addition, sodium ion battery needs to be rolled out on a large scale to reducecosts, and considering the overall system cost,lithium battery system, for example, battery cost isonly60%, the remaining40% is the management system cost,because the sodium ion battery energy density is low, the needfor higher management system costs, so the total cost is still not low.

8. batteryrecycling business bottlenecks in the dismantling

Withthe price increase, whether it is lithium iron phosphate batteries or triple batteries, the recovery value has been greatly increased, the biggest limitation is dismantling, battery recycling mainly includes 2mainmethods:

Fire method: The waste battery is calcined in the furnace into iron ingots, and then recovered by acid melting metal, but this method lithium is difficult to recover, because lithium will evaporate during the calcination process. Foreign countries like Belgium Umicco mainly use this approach.

Dismantling method: the mainstream method of the domestic, the waste battery will be dismantled and removed shell, the core through the kiln calcination and then grinding, copper, aluminum separate, positive materials through acid soluble recovery of nickel, cobalt, lithium.

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