Recently, Professor Yu Jianguo and Professor Lin Sen from the National Engineering Research Center for Comprehensive Utilization of Salt Lake Resources of our university have made important progress in the field of efficient recovery of lithium resources in strong acid systems, and the relevant research results, titled An induced Li+ oriented migration strategy for high-efficiency extremely strong acid lithium recovery, were published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., i.e., the internationally authoritative journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
To address the limitation of traditional lithium extraction methods in their application in strongly acidic solutions, the research team proposed a new strategy of induced oriented migration of lithium ions. Based on the structural properties of lithium-aluminum layered double hydroxides (Li/AlLDHs), this strategy utilizes the oriented migration of lithium ions between the solid phase and the liquid phase to achieve highly selective enrichment of lithium ions from strongly acidic solutions and efficient lithium stripping via neutral solutions in the presence of a large number of impurity ions, while realizing the recycling of aluminum sources and waste-free emission throughout the whole process. By establishing a non-equilibrium thermodynamic model, the research team revealed the driving mechanism of the chemical potential gradient of lithium ions among the laminates, interlayers and liquid phase, and clarified the influence mechanism of various key parameters on lithium recovery efficiency. This strategy exhibits excellent lithium recovery performance and cost advantages in real multi-component strongly acidic systems such as spent lithium battery leachate, industrial wastewater and acid mine drainage, with an overall lithium recovery rate exceeding 96%.
Doctoral student Guo Yihong and Distinguished Associate Research Fellow Tao Haolan are the co-first authors of the paper, and Professor Lin Sen and Professor Lian Cheng from the National Engineering Research Center for Comprehensive Utilization of Salt Lake Resources are the co-corresponding authors. This research was supported by the research fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Original link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.5231087
