A Review of Lithium Ion Adsorbents for Extracting of Lithium from Low-Concentration Soluble Sources

Due to the applications of lithium in various industries, the demand for it has increased. Seawater is a great source of lithium, but its lithium concentration is very low. Conventional separation methods are not effective in such low concentrations. Using the absorption method adopted for extracting lithium from seawater and brines with low concentration, is promising. The main problems for the practical application of lithium-ion sieve include excessive solution use, loss of adsorption pressure, difficulty in recycling powder adsorbents and poor recycling performance. Therefore, powder adsorbents have been modified for practical application by surface modification, add magnetic properties and preparing composites of them. In this review paper, different types of lithium-ion adsorbents, including types of ion sieve, crown ether, activated carbon, zeolite, and lithium aluminium layered double hydroxide chloride (Li/Al LDH) have been investigated. Various methods that improve the performance of each sorbent in practical applications have been provided.