Crystallisation

Example

See it in the plant

1. Concentrate: lithium arrives dilute, in 586 kg of raffinate, so water is evaporated first.
2. Precipitate: soda ash (sodium carbonate) is added to the hot solution and lithium carbonate crystallises out.
3. Filter, wash and dry: 2653 kg of lithium carbonate, holding 498 kg of lithium, is bagged: 85% of the lithium that reached this step.
4. Bleed: the mother liquor, 87.9 kg, takes the rest of the lithium and the sodium sulfate out of the circuit.

Use in Lemonergy

Distinguish recovered material from a qualified product.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

Connected concepts

Related concepts from the knowledge graph. Connections show context, not cause and effect. Hover or focus a linked term for its definition.

Lithium hydroxide

The lithium chemical required for high-nickel cathodes, which must be fired at temperatures too low for lithium carbonate to react. It is made from spodumene directly or by converting carbonate.

Nickel sulfate

The battery-grade nickel chemical fed to precursor plants, made from high-purity class 1 nickel or increasingly from Indonesian laterite ore by high-pressure acid leaching. It is the largest cost in a high-nickel cathode.

Precursor cathode active material

The mixed nickel–manganese–cobalt hydroxide made by co-precipitation from metal sulfate solutions, before lithium is added. Its particle size and shape are set here and carried through to the finished NMC powder.

Solvent extraction

Separating metals in the leach liquor by contacting it with an organic phase carrying an extractant that picks up one metal at a time, controlled by pH: manganese, then cobalt, then nickel, leaving lithium in the water. It is how recyclers reach battery-grade sulfates.

References & further reading

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

1. Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

   U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

   Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.

2. Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles

   Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019

   Topic background · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.