Hydrometallurgical Treatment of Pegmatite Ore for the Recovery of Battery-grade Lithium Chloride (LiCl) Precursor Compound

Aishat Y. ABDULKAREEM

National Mathematical Centre, Sheda-Kwali Abuja, P.M.B 118, Nigeria

*Corresponding author’s Email: iishahay876@gmail.com, doi.org/10.55639/607.02010057


ABSTRACT

This study presents a hydrometallurgical process for the recovery of
battery-grade precursor compound from pegmatite ore, adopting calcium chloride-assisted roasting and aqueous leaching technique were employed. Pegmatite ore of Nigerian Origin were subjected to thermal treatment in the presence of CaCl2 at varying temperatures (500–750 °C) to enhance the solubility of target metal species of lithium. This was subsequently followed by aqueous leaching under controlled conditions of 85 °C temperature, 10 g/L solid-to-liquid ratio, 120 minutes to optimize lithium recovery. The influence of parameters of CaCl2 dosage on leachability was systematically investigated. Study reveals that a temperature of 700 °C and 1: 3 ore / CaCl2 gave maximum lithium extraction of 91.1 %. Analytical techniques including XRD, ICP-OES, and SEM-EDS were employed to characterize the roasted solids and leachates, confirming the transformation of phases into soluble intermediates. The process achieved selective recovery of high-purity precursor chloride compound of highgrade value.

Keywords:

Hydrometallurgy,
Recovery,
Pegmatite Ore,
Battery-grade,
Precusor.