After two rounds of pilot scale tests and sustained by more than 700 pairs of experiment data, the global industrialization of extraction of lithium from seawater has made a major breakthrough. On the morning of March 8, the Seawater Desalination Company of Qingdao Water Affairs Group and LIS (Shanghai) Materials Technology Co., Ltd. held a signing ceremony in Qingdao Baifa Seawater Desalination Plant, kicking off the world’s first project for extraction of lithium from seawater and marking the shift of extraction of lithium from seawater from engineering-based verification to industrialization.

Since December 2021, the Seawater Desalination Company of Qingdao Water Affairs Group started cooperation with LIS Technology, conducted one-year-long engineering-based verification on extraction of lithium from strong saline seawater in Qingdao Baifa Seawater Desalination Plant. After two rounds of pilot scale tests and processing 200,000 tonnes seawater, a high-selectivity and high-throughput sieve for extraction of lithium has been designed and an industrialized device has been made for mass extraction of lithium from seawater. The project will be put into operation as scheduled at the end of this December.  (Wu Shuai)