Not long ago, Zhao Zhongwei, deputy dean of the School of Metallurgy and Environment of Central South University, and his team "packed" a container full of "black technology" equipment, and "towed with a mouth" from Shenzhen, Hunan, "settled" in Golmud, Qinghai.

　　Not long ago, Zhao Zhongwei, deputy dean of the School of Metallurgy and Environment of Central South University, and his team "packed" a container full of "black technology" equipment, and "towed box with mouth" settled in Golmud, Qinghai from Shenzhen, Hunan.

　　The huge "black box" container is connected with several water pipes that can "turn decay into magic". From one end of the pipe into the "black box" the local salt lake brine with a high "magnesium-lithium ratio", when it flows out, it is purified into a high-quality "South American salt lake brine." No chemical reagents are added during the whole process, and no harmful chemicals are produced.

　　Such on-site "magic" made the salt lake lithium companies who came to observe it, and they were delighted to see it. The original disruptive technology involved in "Magic" that will rewrite the production capacity of lithium products in my country and the world was "transferred" from Central South University at a high price of RMB 104.8 billion.

　　brine drop "ratio" becomes a bottleneck in lithium resource development

　　When it comes to lithium, people are familiar with it. Lithium is the main raw material for batteries ranging from new energy vehicles to cell phone batteries.

　　Lithium is "reused" because of its extremely abundant reserves in the world. According to data from the US Geological Survey, global lithium reserves are 13 million tons and lithium resources are 39.5 million tons. Among them, 76% of lithium resources exist in salt lake brine. 85% of my country's proven reserves of lithium resources also exist in salt lake brines.

　　Salt lake brine is mainly distributed in the Andes Plateau of South America and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of my country. Generally, the higher the average concentration of lithium in the brine and the lower the "Mg-Li ratio", the more conducive to the extraction of lithium.

　　The "magnesium-lithium ratio" of most salt lake brines in my country is dozens or even hundreds of times higher than that of foreign high-quality salt lake brines. With the existing technology, it is difficult to achieve large-scale, high-efficiency, clean, and clean lithium resources of salt lakes with high "magnesium-lithium ratio". Economic development and production. It is also difficult to reduce the "Mg-Li ratio" of brine, and the development of high "Mg-Li ratio" brine resources in my country and even the world cannot substantially release its production capacity. Therefore, even though my country is a big country with lithium resources, its external dependence on lithium resources is still as high as 70%. Importing high-quality brines from South America is the norm.

　　How to reduce the "magnesium-lithium ratio" has become a key technical bottleneck for the development of salt lake high-magnesium-lithium ratio brine lithium resources, and it is also a world-class problem facing industry experts.