Direct lithium extraction + LiOH crystallization — a BRINE process flowsheet
A Salar-brine DLE train: an Al-based sorbent column selectively loads Li+ (rejecting the brine's much larger Mg2+ background — real DLE sorbents cut a ~290:1 Mg/Li mass ratio down to under 1:1), the loaded sorbent is eluted with fresh water into an aqueous strip liquor (bridging the sorption column's own documented single-pass-loading scope), RO concentrates it, a real bipolar-membrane electrodialysis (BPED) cell converts LiCl to LiOH — Faraday's law links the applied current/membrane area/current efficiency to the actual Li+ transport rate (replacing an earlier placeholder fixed-conversion reactor), reporting real cell voltage and electrical power draw — and a forward-feed two-effect evaporator train (vapor from effect 1 heats effect 2) concentrates it to battery-grade LiOH·H₂O crystals. Real boiling-point elevation throughout via the Pitzer-electrolyte brine thermo package. Isotherm parameters per the sorption column's own citation (2024 Desalination study, Al-based DLE sorbent).
Modeling assumptions & limitations
- 1The BPED cell still tracks only the lumped li/lioh solute pair this brine thermo package carries (no first-class Cl-/H+/OH- species), so it produces one outlet stream (the Li+ → LiOH conversion) rather than a genuine two-compartment acid+base product split — see for the exact scope.
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- Rigorous BRINE thermodynamics, solved by the same engine every simulation runs on.
- 7 unit operations modeled: DLE, Elute MIX, RO PUMP, RO, BPED, 2× Evap2, Cryst.
- Focus areas: Direct lithium extraction, Battery metals, Electrolyte thermo, Evaporator, Crystallizer.
- Thermodynamics
- BRINE
- Components
- water, nacl, li, mg, lioh
- Unit operations
- DLEElute MIXRO PUMPROBPED2× Evap2Cryst
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Read the step-by-step guideReproduce this exact result from Python — the real client.get_example() → run_and_wait() path, not a mockup.
from flowsim.sdk import FlowSimClient
client = FlowSimClient()
example = client.get_example("direct-lithium-extraction")
sim = client.create_simulation(example["title"], example["flowsheet"])
result = client.run_and_wait(sim["id"])
print(result["status"]) # "converged"
streams = client.streams(sim["id"])Related models
Triple-effect brine evaporator (forward feed)
The classic multiple-effect evaporator, as a standalone drop-in template: a 6 wt% NaCl brine concentrated in three forward-feed effects down a pressure cascade (1.0 → 0.70 → 0.45 bar), where each effect's vapour boil-off is the heating steam for the next. Live 350 kPa steam drives only the first effect; the model reports the resulting steam economy, the per-effect boiling temperatures, and the concentrated liquor. Runs on the brine electrolyte package, so the boiling-point elevation is a real function of the salt as the liquor concentrates rather than an assumed offset.
RO desalination + ZLD
Seawater (real NaCl brine, Pitzer-electrolyte thermo) is pressurized and split in a reverse-osmosis membrane into fresh permeate and concentrate; a thermal brine concentrator (an evaporator effect) drives the concentrate the rest of the way to saturation — RO alone can't reach it, since retentate osmotic pressure would exceed any practical feed pressure — before a crystallizer closes the zero-liquid-discharge loop on solid NaCl. The membrane's recovery is bounded by the retentate's real osmotic pressure.
Cobalt/nickel solvent extraction (D2EHPA)
A laterite leach liquor (Co/Ni/Mg in dilute sulfate solution) meets a D2EHPA-in-kerosene organic phase across a 20-stage countercurrent extraction circuit run at pH 5.2 — the real industrial operating window (e.g. Bulong, Murrin Murrin, Western Australia) that exploits the ~1 pH-unit gap between Co and Ni's D2EHPA extraction isotherms: Co extracts into the organic while Ni (and Mg gangue) are rejected to the raffinate. The loaded organic then meets fresh dilute-acid strip liquor across a 10-stage strip circuit at pH 1.0 (well below Co's isotherm), reversing the equilibrium to recover a concentrated cobalt strip liquor and regenerate barren organic. Real pH-isotherm chemistry throughout, not a fitted shortcut K_D.
Battery black-mass recycling: leach -> SX -> BPED -> LiOH crystallization
Spent-battery black mass (an NMC111-like LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 lump, sulfuric acid-leached at a screening-level yield/stoichiometry — see the stated scope) dissolves into a pregnant leach solution carrying Li/Co/Ni/Mn. A 15-stage D2EHPA solvent-extraction circuit (the same real pH-isotherm chemistry the co-ni-solvent-extraction example uses, operated at pH 7.5 — above every curated Co/Ni/Mn pH50 — so all three transition metals extract into the kerosene organic phase while Li, which has no curated D2EHPA isotherm, stays in the aqueous raffinate untouched) purifies the liquor before it ever reaches the lithium-recovery chemistry. A Faraday's-law bipolar-membrane electrodialysis (BPED) cell (the same real electrochemistry as the direct-lithium-extraction example, sized up for this liquor's larger Li flow) converts Li+ to LiOH, which an MSMPR crystallizer takes to battery-grade LiOH solid. Every step reuses an already-real, independently-tested unit op (,,,) chained into the one train none of them had been assembled into before.
Solids train (crystallize → filter → dry)
An MSMPR crystallizer feeds a cake filter and dryer — the crystal size and cake moisture propagate on the stream's solids payload (pharma / minerals workflow).
Crystallization with agglomeration (distributed CSD)
An MSMPR crystallizer solved with the rigorous distributed population balance (not just moments): the full crystal-size distribution is computed on a size grid, and an agglomeration (aggregation) kernel combines fine crystals into larger ones — coarsening the mass-weighted mean size (d43) and broadening the distribution (CV rises above the growth-only MSMPR value of ~1.0) while conserving mass exactly. The distribution, its coefficient of variation, and d43 propagate on the solid stream into the filter and dryer — the gPROMS/gCRYSTAL capability the moment model structurally cannot provide.