Browsing by Author "Feng, Yuge"

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    Three-chamber electrochemical reactor for selective lithium extraction from brine
    (National Academy of Sciences, 2024) Feng, Yuge; Park, Yoon; Hao, Shaoyun; Fang, Zhiwei; Terlier, Tanguy; Zhang, Xiao; Qiu, Chang; Zhang, Shoukun; Chen, Fengyang; Zhu, Peng; Nguyen, Quan; Wang, Haotian; Biswal, Sibani Lisa; Rice Advanced Material Institute
    Efficient lithium recovery from geothermal brines is crucial for the battery industry. Current electrochemical separation methods struggle with the simultaneous presence of Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ because these cations are similar to Li+, making it challenging to separate effectively. We address these challenges with a three-chamber reactor featuring a polymer porous solid electrolyte in the middle layer. This design improves the transference number of Li+ (tLi+) by 2.1 times compared to the two-chamber reactor and also reduces the chlorine evolution reaction, a common side reaction in electrochemical lithium extraction, to only 6.4% in Faradaic Efficiency. Employing a lithium-ion conductive glass ceramic (LICGC) membrane, the reactor achieved high tLi+ of 97.5% in LiOH production from simulated brine, while the concentrations of Na+ K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ are below the detection limit. Electrochemical experiments and surface analysis elucidated the cation transport mechanism, highlighting the impact of Na+ on Li+ migration at the LICGC interface.