Lithium Recovery from Geothermal Waters of Cesano (Italy) and Cronembourg (Alsace, France)

Abstract

As a part of ongoing studies into the economic use of geothermal fluids, we carried out experiments on the recovery of lithium from reconstituted French and Italian geothermal fluid samples. The method consisted of adding different concentrations of H20 and KOH to the starting solutions, at different temperatures and leading to the precipitation of aluminium phases. Encouraging results were obtained: without any prior treatment, high lithium recovery was obtained at at a similar to that of the starting solution, and with the addition of relatively low amounts of aluminium. Investigation of the chemistry of solid and fluid phases showed that the encouraging results were strongly influenced by the chemical composition of the initial fluids.