【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】From 2030 to 2026, Zhonglan Lianhai will take the lead in building the world’s first 10,000-ton-per-year demonstration plant for lithium extraction using extraction methods

Thread Content

This post was last edited by HaiChuanLaoYu on 2026-3-5 at 21:14. Let’s give praise and support to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Progress in Chemical Engineering Equipment】A continuously updated summary thread – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html ***************** Zhonglan Lianhai led the development of the world’s first 10,000-ton-per-year demonstration plant for lithium extraction from salt lakes. Recently, Zhonglan Lianhai, in collaboration with institutions such as the Qinghai Salt Lake Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Qinghai CITIC Guoan Technology Development Co., Ltd., made significant breakthroughs in the key technologies related to the extraction and separation of lithium from salt lake resources. As a result, the world’s first industrial-scale demonstration plant for extracting lithium from salt lake brine was established, enabling the industrial use of lithium carbonate on a 10,000-ton-per-year scale and filling the gap in large-scale lithium extraction technologies in this industry. The recovery of lithium-rich mother liquor is a key step in lithium extraction from salt lakes, as it affects economic benefits and resource utilization efficiency. To address the issues associated with traditional lithium extraction technologies, such as poor selectivity for monovalent ions, low separation efficiency, high consumption of acids and bases, and severe degradation of the separation media, a research team developed a green and efficient extraction and separation method for lithium extraction. By designing and synthesizing new lithium-specific extractants, they successfully overcame the limitations of traditional extraction systems in terms of environmental sustainability, safety, and cost control. Applying extraction technology to the recovery of lithium-precipitation mother liquor can significantly reduce raw material consumption and improve the overall lithium recovery rate, providing a viable approach for the efficient recovery and clean utilization of lithium resources from salt lakes. Currently, the world’s first industrial demonstration line capable of producing 10,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year through the extraction of lithium from salt lake brine has been built. This extraction process achieves a lithium recovery rate of over 98%, generating additional economic value of more than 600 million yuan; it provides key technical support for the high-quality development of China’s salt lake lithium industry. Expert evaluations show that this technology is at the international leading level, and its industrial application is expected to provide significant support for the efficient recovery and high-value utilization of lithium resources from salt lakes throughout the entire process. Salt lakes are one of the important sources of lithium resources in China, and there are various technical approaches for extracting lithium from salt lake brines. For specific types of brine from salt lakes, such as those with a high magnesium-to-lithium ratio, lithium-precipitation mother liquors, as well as carbonate and sodium sulfate-type brines, extraction methods enable high recovery rates and precise separation, thereby significantly improving the efficiency of resource recovery and reducing the overall costs associated with lithium extraction from salt lakes – offering notable technical advantages. Zhonglan Lianhai is responsible for the transformation of technical achievements, the engineering implementation, and subsequent operation of this project. Since the production line has been operating stably for over a year, the lithium recovery rate has remained above 98%, which has helped increase the overall lithium resource recovery rate of the project by more than 15% and reduced costs by 30%. Both water consumption and energy consumption are also below the industry standards by more than 30%. To date, the project has produced over 9,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate in total, generating an additional economic value of more than 600 million yuan; the economic and resource-utilization benefits are significant.