TY - JOUR
T1 - Solar-driven ultrafast lithium extraction from low-grade brine using microfluidics-mediated vortex in scalable electrochemical reactors
AU - Zhang, Xianyun
AU - Li, Zhen
AU - Liu, Jiang
AU - Xu, Fuzong
AU - Zheng, Leiliang
AU - De Wolf, Stefaan
AU - Lai, Zhiping
AU - Lu, Xu
N1 - Funding Information:
X.L. acknowledges financial support from Baseline Funds (BAS/1/1413-01-01) from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Z.P.L. acknowledges Baseline Funds (BAS/1/1375-01-01) and Competitive Research Fund under Award No. URF/1/4713-01 from KAUST. S.D.W. acknowledges the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under Award Nos. OSR-CARF/CCF-3079, IED OSR-2019-4208 and CRG2019-4093. This research used resources from the Core Laboratories of KAUST. The authors thank Thomas Allen and Maxime Babics for their contributions in tandem solar cell fabrication and module lamination.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/2/15
Y1 - 2023/2/15
N2 - Electrochemical lithium (Li) extraction from low-grade salt lake brine, when powered by off-grid renewables, represents a potential approach to meeting the substantially increasing demand for battery-grade Li2CO3. However, this technology has been drastically challenged by the low extraction rate and high production cost, largely due to the lack of research on reactor engineering and system scale-out. Herein, we rationally designed a scalable spiral-microstructured electrochemical reactor (SMER) to accomplish ultrafast and economical Li extraction under harsh brine conditions by virtue of significantly accelerated mass transfer. We showcased that the SMER was stably operated at a Li extraction rate over 5.6 times as much as that of state-of-art devices, and could be up-scaled for commercial production of battery-grade Li2CO3 driven by solar cells. This work lays the ground for sustainable Li extraction from remote low-grade salt lake brine and can be readily applied to more minable Li reserves/resources.
AB - Electrochemical lithium (Li) extraction from low-grade salt lake brine, when powered by off-grid renewables, represents a potential approach to meeting the substantially increasing demand for battery-grade Li2CO3. However, this technology has been drastically challenged by the low extraction rate and high production cost, largely due to the lack of research on reactor engineering and system scale-out. Herein, we rationally designed a scalable spiral-microstructured electrochemical reactor (SMER) to accomplish ultrafast and economical Li extraction under harsh brine conditions by virtue of significantly accelerated mass transfer. We showcased that the SMER was stably operated at a Li extraction rate over 5.6 times as much as that of state-of-art devices, and could be up-scaled for commercial production of battery-grade Li2CO3 driven by solar cells. This work lays the ground for sustainable Li extraction from remote low-grade salt lake brine and can be readily applied to more minable Li reserves/resources.
KW - Electrochemical reactors
KW - Low-grade salt lake Brine
KW - Ultrafast lithium extraction
KW - Vortex
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142413200&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cej.2022.140074
DO - 10.1016/j.cej.2022.140074
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85142413200
SN - 1385-8947
VL - 454
JO - Chemical Engineering Journal
JF - Chemical Engineering Journal
M1 - 140074
ER -