Leaching Behavior of Lithium-Bearing Bauxite with High-Temperature Bayer Digestion Process in K2O-Al2O3-H2O System

Lithium is one of the secondary mineral elements occurring in bauxite. The behavior of lithium-bearing bauxite in the digestion process was investigated, and the effect of digestion conditions on the extraction rates of lithium was studied. The results demonstrate that the mass ratio of the added Ca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMetals (Basel ) Vol. 11; no. 7; p. 1148
Main Authors Han, Dongzhan, Peng, Zhihong, Song, Erwei, Shen, Leiting
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.07.2021
Subjects
Alumina
Aluminum oxide
Bauxite
Bayer process
Decomposition
Digestion
Dosage
Efficiency
Equilibrium
High temperature
K2O-Al2O3-H2O system
Leaching
Lime
Liquor
Lithium
lithium-bearing bauxite
Minerals
Potassium
Red mud
Silica
Sodium
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Summary:Lithium is one of the secondary mineral elements occurring in bauxite. The behavior of lithium-bearing bauxite in the digestion process was investigated, and the effect of digestion conditions on the extraction rates of lithium was studied. The results demonstrate that the mass ratio of the added CaO to bauxite, the KOH concentration, and the digestion temperature had a significant effect on the lithium extraction efficiency. An L9(34) orthogonal experiment demonstrated that the order of each factor for lithium extraction from primary to secondary is lime dosage, caustic concentration, and reaction temperature. Under the optimal conditions (t = 60 min, T = 260 °C, ρ(K2O) = 280 g/L, and 16% lime dosage), the leaching efficiencies of lithium and alumina are 85.6% and 80.09%, respectively, with about 15% of lithium entering into red mud. The findings of this study maybe useful for controlling lithium content in alumina products and lithium recovery from the Bayer process.
ISSN:2075-4701
2075-4701
DOI:10.3390/met11071148