Beneficiation of lithium bearing pegmatite rock: a review

Abstract

The need for lithium in energy storage systems has risen dramatically due to the development of renewable energy technology, portable devices, and electric cars. The current review focuses on the existing worldwide resources of lithium ore, along with the production, demand, and mineralogy of lithium-bearing minerals, in addition to lithium recovery from hard pegmatite ore using different beneficiation techniques. Lithium ore is beneficiated using various methods, including magnetic separation, gravity concentration, electrostatic separation, and flotation to separate gangue minerals. Flotation is the most frequently utilized beneficiation technique. It is found that gravity concentration and flotation are the main beneficiation methods used in many plants around the world. In flotation, reagent chemistry, surface properties, and water quality were critical in spodumene’s efficient recovery. A summary of several reagent regimes, surface properties, flotation conditions, and prospective future studies for technical viability are provided. The current review paper also discusses the beneficiation flowsheet widely used to recover spodumene, lepidolite, and petalite from pegmatite ore. Also, it is tried to discuss the key future research areas along with the cost economics aspect of processing such ore deposits to recover lithium.