Abstract:

The continuous ion exchange technology was used to extract lithium from the salt lake brine with adsorption method.Aiming at the tailing brine system from Yiliping Salt Lake in Qinghai,a continuous ion exchange adsorption process was developed to extract lithium.The effect of operating parameters on the lithium extraction performance of the continuous ion exchange system was studied.In addition,the long-term stability evaluation was carried out under optimized process conditions.Results showed that,when the stepping rotation period was 20 min,the brine feed flow was 3.2 BV/h,the rinsing water volume was 2.9 BV/h,the desorption water volume was 9.3 BV/h and the desorption temperature range was at 15~25 ℃,a lithium recovery of above 98.5%,a Mg/Li mass concentration ratio of about 3 and a lithium mass concentration of about 1.1 g/L were stably obtained in the performance of the qualified solution with the continuous ion exchange system.

Key words: continuous ion exchange, salt lake brine, adsorption, lithium extraction