Adsorption of lithium and calcium using cationic resin for separation application

Lithium is currently one of the most needed elements due to its main role in Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) and its scarce availability in the world. Spent LIBs become a potential source of Lithium, especially for countries with no resource of Lithium in nature. It is necessary to develop an efficient Lithium recovery process which can produce Lithium compound for further reuse. Lithium can be recovered from LIBs cathode through a hydrometallurgical process, which requires sequential precipitations of components. Calcium is frequently added to the precipitation process, which at the end might disturb the purification of Lithium compound products. This work studied the purification of Lithium from Calcium-containing solution by adsorption. The solution might resemble the leaching solution of spent LIBs cathode. The artificial solution containing 2000 ppm Lithium and 500 ppm Calcium were adsorbed using 0.5 grams of cationic resin for 24 hours at 30, 50 and 70°C, respectively. Experimental results showed that Calcium has a higher affinity against Lithium. The adsorption at 30°C was dominated by Calcium intake of 94.16%, while Lithium was only 18.28%. This result indicates that the adsorption method using cationic resins can be used to selectively separate Lithium from the Calcium-containing solution, which is advantageous for further application in LIBs recycling.