According to the "China Lithium Resources Survey Report", lithium mines are divided into two main categories: brine type and hard rock type. Brine type lithium mines include salt lake brine type lithium mines and underground brine type lithium mines, while hard rock type lithium mines include granite pegmatite type lithium mines and granite type lithium mines.
This article will mainly introduce brine-type lithium mines.
The world is rich in lithium resources, of which brine lithium resources account for about 60% of the world's proven lithium resources. They are also highly concentrated in South America, mainly in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. These three countries account for nearly 60% of the world's total lithium resources.
Lithium reserves in salt lakes are far greater than those in ores. Currently, there are many methods for extracting lithium from salt lakes, mainly including salting out, precipitation, extraction, calcination leaching, electrodialysis, membrane separation, and adsorption. Among these, adsorption coupled with membrane separation is suitable for most salt lake brines and represents an important development direction and breakthrough point for future lithium extraction technology from salt lakes.
However, the progress of salt lake mining in my country is relatively slow. The main reasons are that the natural environment in the areas where salt lakes are located is relatively harsh and transportation is very inconvenient. Another reason is that the resource endowment of salt lakes in my country is poor (low lithium content and many impurities), resulting in low production efficiency but high costs.
However, after years of development, my country has also achieved many technological breakthroughs in lithium extraction from salt lakes, which can compensate for the disadvantage of poor domestic salt lake resource endowment. At present, many companies have already made investments in lithium extraction from salt lakes, such as Tibet Mineral Development: solar pool technology; Lanke Lithium: adsorption method + membrane concentration; Zangge Holdings: adsorption method + membrane concentration; Zhongnan Lithium: electrochemical deintercalation method; and Jiuwu Hi-Tech: improved adsorption process.
