Jeollanam Kicks off Industrialization of Lithium Extraction from Sun-dried Salt
Writer
administ
Posted at
2013-12-17
The South Jeolla Province (Jeollanam) began industrialization to extract the popular secondary battery resource lithium from the sun-dried salt.
The province concluded a business agreement with the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) last week to conduct R&D project of extracting valuable metals from the sun-dried salt. The KBSI possesses the patent for the lithium adsorbent.
Lithium, a lightest alkali metal among the solid elements, is used and combined with other elements to produce industrial alloys due to its light and shiny color. It is one of the minor minerals and the average of 30 ppm can be found on the surface, and 0.18ppm and 3.2 ppm are dissolved in both sea water and salt water.
It is mainly produced in Chile, China, the United States, Canada and Argentina, and South Korea depends entirely on imports as of 2010.
The salt farms in Korea, unlike the ones in other countries, normally have all the reservoir, evaporating pounds and crystallizing pounds, which makes the extraction of valuable metals from the salt water much more economical. It can help increase productivity 15 times than the extraction process by constructing heavy structures in the ocean, and only requires simple equipment to extract lithium, according to the analysis of experts.
The province expects to generate annual profits of KRW 10 billion with the annual productions of 3,250 tons of lithium and 6,250 tons of lithium carbonate from local salt farms. There are about 1,000 salt farms and 5,000 salt water storages, and Sinan-gun owns about 74 percent of all the farms and storages.
The KBSI is a government-funded institute established in 1988 in Daejeon to support various research activities and promote the basic science as the foundation of the nation’s science and technological development. It has a supporting system to help the collaborations between the basic science and industries, and assists universities, enterprises and other research institutes to use the high tech equipment.
Jeollanam plans to enhance the cooperation with the relevant organizations to assist the field research projects and attract the investment from conglomerates who are interested in the project.
“The sun-dried salt has boundless potentialities for further development. We will do our best to assist the research on the economic value of lithium extractions and production of high-quality sun-dried salt,” said Park Joon-young, Governor of Jeollanam.
The province concluded a business agreement with the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) last week to conduct R&D project of extracting valuable metals from the sun-dried salt. The KBSI possesses the patent for the lithium adsorbent.
Lithium, a lightest alkali metal among the solid elements, is used and combined with other elements to produce industrial alloys due to its light and shiny color. It is one of the minor minerals and the average of 30 ppm can be found on the surface, and 0.18ppm and 3.2 ppm are dissolved in both sea water and salt water.
It is mainly produced in Chile, China, the United States, Canada and Argentina, and South Korea depends entirely on imports as of 2010.
The salt farms in Korea, unlike the ones in other countries, normally have all the reservoir, evaporating pounds and crystallizing pounds, which makes the extraction of valuable metals from the salt water much more economical. It can help increase productivity 15 times than the extraction process by constructing heavy structures in the ocean, and only requires simple equipment to extract lithium, according to the analysis of experts.
The province expects to generate annual profits of KRW 10 billion with the annual productions of 3,250 tons of lithium and 6,250 tons of lithium carbonate from local salt farms. There are about 1,000 salt farms and 5,000 salt water storages, and Sinan-gun owns about 74 percent of all the farms and storages.
The KBSI is a government-funded institute established in 1988 in Daejeon to support various research activities and promote the basic science as the foundation of the nation’s science and technological development. It has a supporting system to help the collaborations between the basic science and industries, and assists universities, enterprises and other research institutes to use the high tech equipment.
Jeollanam plans to enhance the cooperation with the relevant organizations to assist the field research projects and attract the investment from conglomerates who are interested in the project.
“The sun-dried salt has boundless potentialities for further development. We will do our best to assist the research on the economic value of lithium extractions and production of high-quality sun-dried salt,” said Park Joon-young, Governor of Jeollanam.