Lithium Hydroxide Preparation System-Adsorption (Impurity Removal/Lithium Extraction)+bipolar Membrane Electrodialysis

Monohydrate lithium hydroxide is a highly corrosive white crystalline powder, traditionally used in lithium based lubricants, glass ceramics, and petrochemicals. However, with the increasing demand for high nickel lithium batteries worldwide, battery materials have become the core driving force of the global lithium hydroxide market.

Unlike lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide has strong corrosiveness, is a hazardous chemical, and is more difficult to produce than lithium carbonate.

At the same time, lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate are both indispensable positive electrode materials for power batteries. For example, some nickel cobalt ternary batteries can use both lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate, but nickel cobalt aluminum ternary and high nickel NCM ternary batteries must use battery grade lithium hydroxide. Simply put, products produced using lithium hydroxide usually have better performance.

With the development demand of new energy power batteries, the market's requirements for the volumetric energy density of battery packs are gradually increasing, as this is directly linked to the range of new energy vehicles.

Ternary batteries are often chosen by high-end battery electric vehicle brands due to their long endurance performance advantages, and ternary batteries are gradually evolving towards high nickel, which requires the use of lithium hydroxide.

From three aspects, it is pointed out that in the long run, high nickel ternary is still the mainstream development direction in the future:

(1) Performance end: The energy density of lithium iron phosphate material is close to the theoretical ceiling, and there is limited room for improvement in the future. However, there is still a certain gap between the energy density of ternary materials and the theoretical value. In the future, it is expected to further improve with the increase of nickel content. Later, with the application of process technologies such as large cylinders, CTP, CTC, etc. in ternary systems, the energy density gap between the two is expected to widen. Meanwhile, through strategies such as material modification, battery structure optimization, and system protection, the safety shortcomings of high nickel ternary materials are expected to be improved.

(2) On the cost side: Due to the low content of precious metal cobalt, high nickel ternary is expected to achieve a faster cost reduction rate than lithium iron phosphate as the preparation technology matures, the scale expands, and the recycling industry chain matures in the later stage.

(3) In terms of application scenarios: Although the proportion of lithium iron phosphate in entry-level models is gradually increasing, high-performance models still require the use of high nickel ternary materials.

The processes for large-scale production of lithium hydroxide worldwide mainly include lithium sulfate causticization, lithium carbonate causticization, and limestone roasting. In industrial production, the focus is mainly on two schemes: lithium sulfate causticization and lithium carbonate causticization.

(1) The lithium sulfate causticization method has the advantages of mature technology, short production process, low energy consumption, and small material circulation. It is the mainstream process for producing lithium hydroxide, but the product quality is difficult to reach the optimal standard.

(2) The lithium carbonate causticization method has high quality requirements for lithium carbonate raw materials, so when using low-quality materials such as industrial grade lithium carbonate, it often requires impurity removal processes, which have certain technical difficulties.

The lithium hydroxide preparation system developed by Haipu can be applied to the preparation of lithium hydroxide after extracting lithium from brine, geothermal brine and salt lake and the preparation of lithium hydroxide after impurity removal and lithium enrichment in the lithium battery recovery industry.

In the lithium battery recycling industry, a certain new material technology company's business scope includes the research and development, production, processing, and sales of precursors, positive electrode materials, and new energy materials. The lithium sulfate solution generated during the production process of the enterprise needs to undergo defluorination treatment. Based on the characteristics, difficulties, and treatment requirements of the solution, our company's relevant specialized adsorption materials are selected to adsorb the solution. After impurity removal, the lithium sulfate solution enters the bipolar membrane electrodialysis device and is converted into sulfuric acid and lithium hydroxide.