Mineralogy And Lithium Extraction Technology Study Of Lushi Lepidolite In Henan Province

Lithium and its compounds have applications in many high technological fields such as smelting, air conditioning, new energy, hydrogen bombs, pharmaceutical, glass, ceramics and welding. Because of this, demand for lithium in all aspects is expanding rapidly. Lithium resources are mainly found in salt lake and granite-pegmatite deposits. In China, lithium is still predominantly obtained by extraction from lithium ore, accounting for about 75% of total lithium production. Main occurrences of ores are spodumene, lepidolite and Li-tourmaline.This article investigates the mineralogical characteristics of lepidolite systematically and perfects the mineralogy data and conducts experiments on extracting lithium based on previous studies.The study of this article shows that lepidolite ore mainly in granitic pegmatites. The common paragentic minerals of lepidolite are spodumene, uartz and feldspar. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry was used to identify major elements. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was applied to determine trace elements. The data shows that the contents of Li2O are 6.42%, highter than 3.5%, which was included in the lepidolite areas; lithium ore minerals are mainly a degree of negative Eu anomalies, lepidolite is fractional crystallization of plagioclase crystals gradually precipitated crystal precipitation. The data of using infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis phase chemical bond vibration and its cell parameters are as follow: a = 5.274 ?, b = 9.088?, c = 10.1390?,β= 100.483°, and thus the crystal structure’s polymorphism of this region lepidolite is 1M type.In this paper, the sulfuric acid process was adopted. The solution was obtained by reaction of lepidolite with sulfuric acid at 120 degree for 9 hours, neutralization to pH 12 ~ 13 by the Ca(OH)2, and then addition of superfluous Na2CO3 to get rid of impurity ions. After evaporation and filtration, Li2CO3 precipitate was obtained.Lushi lithium ore is rich in lithium, tantalum, niobium, rubidium, cesium and other elements, all of which are non-renewable rare metal resources. Thus comprehensive utilization should be carried out in the mining of lithium ores. During the extraction of lithium carbonate, extraction methods for the other components should be provided to prevent resource wastage.