SBIR Phase I: Point-Of-Use Nano-Mosaic Filter Technology for Lithium

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于开发一种高效、快速、具有成本效益的使用点技术，从盐水资源中回收锂。目前的卤水作业是资本密集型的，需要很长时间（2年），而且生产高品位锂的回收率很低（30%）。该技术的目标是将运行成本降低两倍，锂回收率高（90%），并将提取时间从2年缩短到24小时以内。这项技术将为全球潜在市场（TAM）贡献约9,920亿美元，并将影响全球锂市场，预计在储能、电动自行车、工具电气化和其他电池密集型应用领域的复合年增长率（CAGR）将达到1.9%。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目建议开发一种用于从非传统水资源中提取锂的使用点纳米膜过滤器。所提出的过滤器采用了一种由丰富的天然多酚制备的新型配位聚合物框架的坚固、多孔和表面带电的定制吸附剂。该吸附剂具有分子筛分能力，孔径可达2 nm，具有与锂离子高结合亲和力的功能配位位点。与现有技术（如太阳能蒸发和离子交换技术）相比，创新的新颖之处在于，纳米过滤技术对锂具有选择性亲和力，能够快速有效地提取和回收锂。研究的目的是验证在24小时内使用氯化锂或碳酸锂进行回收的概念验证，并在后续步骤中实现目标回收效率和90%的转化率。该项目包括：(1)用分子筛制备膜；(2)评估锂的筛分性能、回收和转化；(3)制造原型过滤装置。这些发展将直接解决当前锂的提取时间和效率、成本、回收效率以及太阳能蒸发、离子交换和溶剂萃取以及渗透膜系统对环境的影响等方面的限制。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is in the development of an efficient, rapid, and cost-effective point-of use technology to recover lithium from brine resources. Current brine operations are capital intensive and incur significant lead time (2 years) with low recovery (30%) for producing high-grade lithium. The proposed technology targets two-fold reduction in operation cost, high lithium recovery (90%), and reducing extraction time from 2 years to less than 24 hours. Contributing to the world-wide Total Addressable Market (TAM) of ~$992 billion, this technology will impact the global lithium market, growing at an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.9% for energy storage, electronic bikes, electrification of tools, and other battery-intense applications. This small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project proposes to develop a point-of-use nanomembrane filter for lithium extraction from non-traditional water resources. The proposed filter utilizes a robust, porous, and surface charged tailored sorbent of a novel coordination polymer framework prepared from an abundant natural polyphenol. The sorbents possess molecular sieving ability, tailorable pore size up to the pore dimension 2 nm, and functional coordination sites for high binding affinity for lithium ions. The novelty of the innovation over current technologies (e.g., solar evaporation and ion-exchange techniques) is nano-based filter technology with selective affinity for lithium, enabling rapid and efficient extraction and recovery of lithium. The research objective is to demonstrate the proof-of-concept for recovery within 24 hours as either lithium chloride or lithium carbonate with targeted recovery efficiency and conversion 90% in a subsequent step. The project includes: (1) Fabricating the membrane from the molecular sieves, (2) evaluating the lithium sieving performance, recovery, and conversion, and (3) fabricating a prototype filter unit. These developments will directly address current limitations in extraction time and efficiency, cost, recovery efficiency of lithium, and environmental impact of solar evaporation, ion-exchange and solvent extraction, and osmosis membrane systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.