Abstract:
An electrode assembly comprising in combination:A. an elongated titanium bar of rectangular transversal cross-section having a pair of major planar opposed surfaces and a pair of minor planar opposed surfaces;B. a finned electrode consisting essentially of a plurality of elongated spacer bars of uniform width and thickness mounted in stacked parallel relationship on one of said major planar surfaces and a plurality of elements maintained in spaced parallel relationship throughout their length by said spacers, each element having a bottom flat wall of a width not less than that of the spacers and a pair of spaced outwardly sloping sidewalls each including an outwardly extending ledge; said spacers and elements being made of a metal selected from iron, copper, cobalt, nickel and alloys of these metals; andC. enveloping the finned electrode, a prefabricated diaphragm having uniformly spaced corrugations of a wave length equal to the distance between two adjacent ledges, said diaphragm being so positioned on the electrode that each ledge has its longitudinal edge in contact therewith at the bottom of a corrugation.In the electrode assembly, the cathode and diaphragm membrane are preassembled and form a unit which can readily be combined with anodes in the formation of multi unit cells.
Abstract:
A process for producing refined lithium metal can include: a) processing a lithium chemical feedstock material using an electrowinning apparatus to produce a crude lithium metal having a first purity; b) combining the crude lithium metal with a carrier material to create a lithium-rich feed alloy; c) introducing the lithium-rich feed alloy as a feedstock material to an electrorefining apparatus and processing the lithium-rich feed alloy using the electrorefining apparatus to separate lithium metal from the carrier material thereby producing i) a refined lithium metal having a second purity that is greater than the first purity and ii) a lithium-depleted alloy that comprises the carrier material and less lithium metal than the lithium-rich feed alloy; and d) extracting the lithium-depleted alloy from the electrorefining apparatus and recycling at least a portion of the lithium-depleted alloy to provide at least a portion of the carrier material used in step b).
Abstract:
In this disclosure, a process of recycling acid, base and the salt reagents required in the Li recovery process is introduced. A membrane electrolysis cell which incorporates an oxygen depolarized cathode is implemented to generate the required chemicals onsite. The system can utilize a portion of the salar brine or other lithium-containing brine or solid waste to generate hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and carbonate salts. Simultaneous generation of acid and base allows for taking advantage of both chemicals during the conventional Li recovery from brines and mineral rocks. The desalinated water can also be used for the washing steps on the recovery process or returned into the evaporation ponds. The method also can be used for the direct conversion of lithium salts to the high value LiOH product. The method does not produce any solid effluent which makes it easy-to-adopt for use in existing industrial Li recovery plants.
Abstract:
Disclosed are an electrolytic reduction system of a vanadium electrolyte and a method for producing the electrolyte. The electrolytic reduction system includes a separating device and an electrolytic tank. The separating device is configured to separate a mixture consisting of a vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) solid and a sulfate acid solution, thereby obtaining a vanadium solution from a liquid discharging port of the separating device and a vanadium solid from a solid discharging port. The vanadium solution includes pentavalent vanadium ions. The electrolytic tank connects to the liquid discharging port of the separating device to contain the vanadium solution. In the method for producing the vanadium electrolyte, other chemical reagents are unnecessarily to be added into the mixture, and the vanadium solution is subjected to an electrolytic reduction process, such that the pentavalent vanadium ions are reduced to tetravalent vanadium ions and trivalent vanadium ions in the electrolytic tank.
Abstract:
The presently disclosed concepts relate to improved techniques for critical mineral extraction, purification, precipitation, ion exchange, and metal production using a solid electrolyte membrane. By using a solid electrolyte embedded in a matrix, alkali metal (such as lithium) can be more effectively separated from feed solutions. Additionally, energy used to initially extract critical minerals from a feed solution may be stored as electrochemical energy, which in turn, may be discharged when critical minerals are depleted from the electrode. This discharged energy may therefore be reclaimed and reused to extract additional critical minerals.
Abstract:
A system and process for purifying and concentrating lithium using a sequential and cyclical process of charging and discharging electrodes to selectively push ions from cell to cell, repeatedly drawing lithium from a cell containing source brine naturally containing lithium into a cell containing recovery brine intended to continually increase in lithium concentration.
Abstract:
In a method of recovering a lithium precursor, a first electrode including an active material, and a second electrode are prepared. The first electrode and the second electrode are immersed in a first reaction solution in a first reaction vessel and a second reaction solution in a second reaction vessel, respectively. A voltage or a current is applied to the first electrode and the second electrode to recover a lithium precursor from the active material.