Qinghai Salt Lake Fozhao BlueTech, China’s largest lithium extraction project using brine, enters pilot production

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The 20,000-ton per year battery-grade lithium carbonate project of Qinghai Salt Lake Fozhao Lanco Lithium Co., Ltd., China’s largest lithium extraction project using brine, has been essentially completed and is now officially in the trial production phase. The Chaharhan Salt Lake in Haidong Prefecture, Qinghai Province, covers an area of 5,856 square kilometers, with reserves of various resources amounting to over 60 billion tons. Among them, 540 million tons of potassium chloride and 12.04 million tons of lithium chloride rank first in China, with a potential economic value of trillions of yuan (the same unit is used hereafter). It is reported that the project was approved for initiation in December 2017, with a total registered investment of 3.132 billion yuan; construction began on April 18, 2018. The construction contents of this project mainly include the lithium adsorption tower area and upstream facilities (salt pans and storage tanks), nanofiltration and reverse osmosis systems, lithium precipitation processes, adsorbent synthesis and other related facilities, as well as supporting auxiliary production projects, utility projects (natural gas boilers, air compression stations, circulating water stations, chilled water stations, main power substations, etc.), and administrative service facilities. Upon completion of the project, it will be capable of producing 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year, with the potential to reach an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons. To date, the project has established a lithium carbonate production facility with an annual capacity of 10,000 tons, enabling industrial-scale production; once the facility with an annual capacity of 20,000 tons for battery-grade lithium carbonate is completed, the total production capacity is expected to reach 30,000 tons.