An attempt to minimize the cost of extracting lithium from boron clays through robust process design

In this study a robust design method is developed for extracting Li from boron (B) clays with the aim of minimizing cost and maximizing productivity. Lithium is commercially extracted from brines and certain minerals. Its extraction from clays has previously been found to be expensive, a major part of the extraction cost being attributed to the raw materials used. In this study, raw materials from lower-cost resources are used without applying any standardization to them and this might increase variation in the results. To minimize the variation, and achieve high extraction levels, robust design, statistical design and analysis of experiments, and response surface methodologies are utilized. As a result, consistently higher extraction levels have been achieved compared to previous studies. The experiments were conducted using the Bigadic boron clay fields in Turkey. However, the method is generally applicable to other cases also.