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Advanced Technologies for Lithium Recovery

Advanced Technologies for Lithium Recovery

It is the lightest of metals but its use marks a growing presence in our everyday lives. Not only are lithium products and solutions dominating global markets: lithium has revolutionized them. While demands and expectations grow, Tenova is taking the lithium revolution on its Sustenovability course.

Mark Jablonka

Senior Technologist - Tenova Advanced Technologies (TAT)
Our process, which leverages our significant global experience in Solvent Extraction (SX) and Electrowinning (EW), can be applied across all feed streams originating from any source, including salar, hard rock, waste recycle and process waste streams to directly produce high quality Lithium Hydroxide.

Mainly employed in heat-conducting alloys, lithium is widely used in metallurgical processes, promoting the melting of metals, eliminating the formation of oxides and absorbing impurities. While this makes it a requested component for efficient production processes, lithium boasts another main feature that has recently increased its global value. From a globally relevant green perspective, the element has a high electrode potential, which means that it is widely used for the production of rechargeable lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries. These energy storage units are the same as those that equip the latest hybrid or full-electric vehicle models, the mode of transport for a not too distant future boasting significantly lower CO2 emissions.

As the rise of lithium has become pivotal to the transition towards sustainable business and industrial practices, our forward-thinking professionals explored various processes to produce lithium more efficiently. Tenova Advanced Technologies (TAT) has successfully built a complete flowsheet incorporating their SX technology with complimentary processes of various technology partners for the production of Lithium Hydroxide and other high-grade lithium products, straight from primary sources. The same technologies are now being applied to Li battery recycling. This revolutionary comprehensive process heralds a new generation of lithium production and recovery technologies to produce lithium in the most efficient manner at low capital and operating costs.