Battery Materials R&D Centre of Excellence, UK: Validating the lithium refining process flowsheet and designing a facility for rapid scale up

快速发展的电池电动汽车（EV）和存储行业要求电池生产迅速升级。电池供应链包括阴极活性材料（CAM）制造商、阴极制造商、电池制造商（gigafactory）和汽车原始设备制造商（oem），它们必须紧急确保上游锂化学品供应。英国和欧盟目前依赖中国精炼锂化工产品的进口，这给价格和数量带来了重大不确定性。陆上锂精炼对于满足欧洲2030年每年80万吨的电动汽车需求至关重要，而储能需求并未广泛纳入预测。Green Lithium计划在提赛德（Teesside）建造世界上第一家锂电池规模化工厂。它的规模扩大工厂将是一个中等规模的商业规模，位于中试规模和大型工业设施之间。该扩建工厂将采用低碳“碱浸”湿法冶金工艺，以含锂矿物α -锂辉石精矿为原料生产一水氢氧化锂。

The fast-growing battery-electric vehicle (EV) and storage industries demand battery production upscales rapidly. Battery supply chains include cathode-active-material (CAM) manufacturers, cathode manufacturers, battery manufacturers (gigafactories) and automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), which must urgently secure upstream lithium chemical supplies.The UK and EU currently depend on Chinese refined lithium chemical imports, driving major price and volume uncertainty. Onshore lithium refining is essential to meet the c.800,000 tonne per annum European 2030 demand from EVs, with demand from energy storage not widely factored into forecasts.Green Lithium plans to build the world's first lithium scale-up plant in Teesside. Its Scale-Up Plant will be an intermediate-sized, commercial-scale operation sitting between pilot-scale and large-scale industrial facility. The Scale-Up Plant will deploy the low-carbon 'alkali-leach' hydrometallurgy process for producing lithium hydroxide monohydrate from raw material alpha-spodumene concentrate, a lithium-bearing mineral.