Synchronous recovery of lithium and boron from the carbonate-type brine by two tandem fixed-bed adsorbers

In view of the coexistence of lithium and boron in the carbonate-type brine, a novel process for the synchronous recovery of lithium and boron from brine using two tandem fixed-bed adsorbers, is developed, where the first column is packed with PVB-HTO ion-sieves for lithium recovery, and the second column is packed with N-methylglucamine resins for boron recovery. After the recovery of lithium and boron from brine, two packed columns are desorbed independently through acidic solution washing to obtain Li-rich solution and B-rich solution, respectively. The carbonate-type brine mainly contains cations of Na+, K+, Li+ and anions of Cl-, 〖“SO” 〗_4^(2-) , 〖“CO” 〗_3^(2-) and 〖“B(OH)” 〗_4^- , where carbonate and borate in brine have the pH-buffering action to accept or neutralize the released H+ ions enhancing the Li+/H+ ion-exchange. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed process is validated experimentally for the synchronous recovery of lithium and boron from brine.