Using NaCl to extract Li from Nevada clay

A lithium mining expert doubted use of NaCl to extract Li from clays so I did a shallow Google search:

Source:

Extracting Lithium from Clays by Roast-leach Treatment
By Joan T. May, D. S. Witkowsky, Don C. Seidel

They used the same Nevada clay deposit Elon mentions. However, they used potassium chloride and were disappointed. But sodium is more electro-positive reactive and smaller than potassium. This means the extraction rates seen in the original report should be higher using sodium chloride:

• Ionization energy (1st)
• Li - 520.2 kJ/mol
• Na - 495.8 kJ/mol
• K - 418.8 kJ/mol

Chemistry suggests sodium chloride would have been a better choice over potassium chloride in the paper. Still, there are other factors such as identification of whatever the Li is linked with in the clay. If I were investigating, I would use a mass spectrometer and electrophoresis to separate the ore molecules and identify the lithium concentrated compounds. This may lead to insights for more effective Li extraction.

So @tochatihu, close enough?

Bob Wilson

 

With some effort, I was able to extract a PDF of the 1979 report:

What I wanted to collect were even small samples of the lithium compounds to see if we can figure out what the Li is bound to. Knowing the molecular mass helps reduce the candidates. It is possible there is a broad range of molecular masses involved but we still want to know what is there.

If a small sample(s), micrograms(?), can be collected, zap them with a powerful light source and analyze the spectrum to identify the elements. Given the less than 1% lithium in the ore, my first thought was to replicate some of the Manhattan project separation techniques. Happily, some enrichment can be achieved by separating the SiO{2} that is ~50% of the clay and possibly some of the others.

I found a second source claiming HCL can treat the clays and make a LiCl compound that vaporizes at 900 C. But heating bulk ores with less than 1% lithium content to 900 C takes a lot of energy. Even after taking out the 'low hanging fruit', the easily separated, this remains a hard problem.

Bob Wilson