The metal lithium is a silvery-white; petalite is found in the minerals spodumene, lepidolite mica, and amblygonite.
It is estimated that the United States has approximately 760,000 tons of lithium. The resources in the rest of the world are estimated to be 12 million tons. The United States is the world’s leading consumer of lithium and lithium compounds. The leading producers and exporters of lithium ore materials are Chile and Argentina. China and Russia have lithium ore resources, but it is presently cheaper for these countries to import this material from Chile than to mine their own.
Potassium compounds can be used in glass and ceramic production. Greases can be made using calcium soaps, for example, in place of lithium compounds. In some cases, glass, polymers and resins can be used in place of aluminum-lithium alloys. Zinc, magnesium, nickel and cadmium, and even mercury, can be used to make batteries in place of lithium.
One of the elements lithium to alkali, more widely distributed in nature, the average content in the crust 20 × 10-6 (Taylor, 1964), in the main types of igneous rocks and the main types of sedimentary rocks have different levels of distribution, which in higher levels of granite, the average concentration of 40 × 10-6 (Vinogradov, 1962). Have been found in nature, lithium minerals and lithium ore 150 kinds, including lithium minerals are 30 kinds of independent, mostly silicate (67%) and phosphate (21.2%), while others areless. Preparation of lithium as a mineral raw materials are mainly spodumene (including Li2O5.8% ~ 8.1%), lithium mica (including Li2O3.2% ~ 6.45%), lithium aluminum phosphate rock (containing Li2O7.1% ~ 10.1%) , through the lithium feldspar (including Li2O2.9% ~ 4.8%) and lithium iron mica (including Li2O1.1% ~ 5%), in which the first three most important minerals.
Spodumene Crusher and Spodumene Grinding Mill
The common spodumene crushing and grindng process is below. The raw spodumene is feeded to jaw crusher and crushed in jaw crusher down to 5 mm particle size, then crushed spodumene is feeded into the ball mill for grinding. The final product of crushing and grinding process will be processed and extracted by other equipment. Gulin can supply jaw crusher as spodumene primary crusher and cone crusher as secondary crusher if necessary. Additional, Gulin can provide ball mill for grinding spodumene. Gulin coarse powder mill and MTM trapezium mill is a good substitute of ball mill.