Abstract: Metallic lithium and its compounds have fine prospects in the fields of energy sources and new materials.In the 21st century,it will be a new direction to recover lithium from salt lake brine for the production of lithium salts.Manganese oxide and titanium oxide can be used as lithium ion-sieve to extract lithium from salt lake brine and seawater.They are the most promising green lithium absorbents in future.Various preparation methods of lithium-manganese oxide and lithium-titanium oxide which act as precursors of lithium ion-sieves were introduced,respectively.The methods contain solid sintering-and liquid reaction-methods.Advantages and disadvantages of different methods and properties of different lithium ion-sieves were also evaluated.It is pointed out that the combination of different methods in preparing the precursors and the elements doping are the effective way to enhance adsorption ability of lithium ion-sieve.