A rational strategy for synchronous extraction of lithium and boron from salt lake brines

A new strategy for synchronous lithium-boron extraction from brines was proposed based on the anionic interchangeability and plate composition tuning of Li/Al-LDHs. It was stated that the available boron could have a significant enhancement on the Li+ adsorption dependent on the co-adsorption and expanded layer spacing. Besides, pH had a significant regulating effect on the boron adsorption/desorption performance owing to the variational existence forms. Synchronous extraction experiments showed that in the low-salt system, the “lithium-boron” approach got a better extraction for both lithium and boron resources, whereas in the high-salt brines, the “boron-lithium” approach was obviously more appropriate with an extraction of 82.13% lithium and 85.88% boron by reason of the high desorption driving capacity. Combined with further application validation, the “boron-lithium” strategy could finally achieve a lithium resource utilization rate of 84.19% and a boron resource utilization rate of 95.02% for the Yiliping salt lake brine.