About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Fundamentals of Sustainable Metallurgy and Materials Science
|
| Presentation Title |
Direct Lithium Extraction by Electrochemical Intercalation: Origin of Selectivity and Demonstration on Real Industrial Feedstocks |
| Author(s) |
Tao Gao, Yunan Qin, Jaydip Bhaliya |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Tao Gao |
| Abstract Scope |
Lithium demand is projected to grow five- to eightfold by 2040, yet supply depends on slow evaporation and hard-rock mining. Direct lithium extraction (DLE) enables single-step recovery from brines, clay leachates, and spent-battery leachates. Electrochemical insertion is consumable-free and reversible, but characterized mostly on synthetic brines. We present both the mechanism and a real-feedstock demonstration of FePO₄ insertion DLE. A galvanostatic-intermittent-titration (GITT) framework decouples ion-insertion reactivity into thermodynamic, kinetic, and mass-transfer descriptors, yielding concentration-dependent selectivity maps that define operating windows. Benchmarking a single FePO₄/0.5 M NaCl workflow across a U.S. salar brine, a battery-recycle leachate, and Nevada clay leachates delivers Faradaic efficiencies up to 96%, Li/Mg separation factors from ~400 to over 10,000, and specific energy below 0.5 kWh per kg Li₂CO₃—an order of magnitude below state-of-the-art. Pore diffusion limits rate; host dissolution constrains durability. These results position electrochemical DLE as a platform for sustainable, circular recovery of critical minerals. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Electrometallurgy, Extraction and Processing, Hydrometallurgy |