Direct lithium extraction, against a wall of magnesium
Lithium loaded selectively off a Salar brine, concentrated, converted to hydroxide by electrodialysis and crystallized to battery grade.
The actual dark-mode canvas: brine through a selective lithium sorbent, the eluate concentrated by reverse osmosis, converted to hydroxide by bipolar-membrane electrodialysis, then double-effect evaporated and crystallized to battery-grade LiOH·H₂O.
Rejecting magnesium is the whole problem
Salar brines carry magnesium at a couple of hundred times the lithium, and it is chemically similar enough that ordinary precipitation cannot separate them — evaporation ponds take eighteen months for exactly this reason. A selective sorbent does it in one pass, and the crystallizer at the far end is solved on a real population balance, so the product crystal size is computed rather than assumed.
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Selective Li+ loading off a high-magnesium brine, eluted to a Li-rich strip liquor.
Combines multiple streams into one, closing the mass and energy balance.
Raises liquid pressure; a flow-dependent head curve drives it in pressure-driven mode.
Solution-diffusion rating model, bounded by van't Hoff osmotic pressure.
LiCl to LiOH by Faraday's law — the conversion stage of a direct-lithium-extraction train.
Process feed against heating steam — concentrated liquid, vapour boil-off and steam condensate in one balance.
MSMPR population balance — nucleation and growth set the mean crystal size.
Stream sorbent loading, RO permeate conductivity and crystallizer supersaturation from the plant's OPC-UA server into this flowsheet's twin comparison — sorbent capacity fades over cycles, and the solved loading is what makes the fade measurable.
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- ✓Selective loading against a ~290:1 Mg/Li background
- ✓Electrodialysis conversion by Faraday's law
- ✓MSMPR population balance sets the product crystal size