Abstract:
Sichuan Jiajika, Lijiagou and other places have rich spodumene reserves, it provides an important source of raw materials for downstream lithium battery energy storage materials and other fields.In the traditional spodumene production process of lithium carbonate, sodium hydroxide neutralization method is used to remove impurities such as iron and aluminum. However, the added value of by-product sodium sulfate is low, resulting in high production costs. This paper studies the process of replacing strong sodium oxide with ammonia gas to neutralize impurities to prepare lithium carbonate, it was found that LiNH
4SO
4 double salt was produced during the precipitation and crystallization process of refined lithium solution, which affected the yield of lithium and the quality of lithium carbonate products.In order to solve the problem, the stable phase equilibrium relationship of the ternary system Li
+, NH
4+//SO
42--H
2O at 298 K was studied by the isothermal dissolved equilibrium method. The solubility, density and refractive index data of each component of the equilibrium liquid phase were measured, and the phase diagram, density-composition diagram and refractive index composition diagram of the system were drawn. The results show that this system is a complex ternary system, with the formation of LiNH
4SO
4 double salt; its stable phase diagram consists of 3 solid phase crystallization regions, 3 univariate curves, 2 invariant points, 3 crystallization regions corresponding to (NH
4)
2SO
4, Li
2SO
4·H
2O and LiNH
4SO
4, And double salt LiNH
4SO
4 crystallization area is the largest.The research results show that in order to avoid the production of LiNH
4SO
4 double salt, It is necessary to reduce the lithium-sulfur ratio (
w(Li
2SO
4)·H
2O/
w(NH
4)
2SO
4) in the lithium solution to less than 1 through the calcium ion precipitation method at the front end of the spodumene-made industrial-grade lithium carbonate process, the research results provide theoretical guidance for the use of ammonia neutralization and impurity removal in the Sichuan spodumene hydrometallurgical process.