
CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL), an innovative sustainable lithium developer in Chile, is collaborating with DuPont Water Solutions, a business unit of DuPont, to test lithium processing technology.
DuPont has developed a new nanofiltration (NF) membrane technology for high lithium recovery. This will be tested in CleanTech Lithium’s direct lithium extraction (DLE) downstream process.
The role of the NF is to remove impurities and maximise lithium recovery. DuPont’s new NF membrane element (named FilmTec LiNE-XD nanofiltration elements) is specifically designed for the lithium sector and will be tested in CTL´s next scheduled phase of post-DLE pilot plant testing. CTL is implementing NF following the eluate concentration stage which utilises industrial forward osmosis (iFO) in the concentrating of lithium and reduction of boron. CleanTech Lithium is investigating the potential of these technologies to eliminate the need for thermal evaporation (TE) and crystallisation in production of battery grade lithium carbonate, which would result in potentially significant CAPEX savings.
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