The global lithium market has seen prices moving to new record highs almost daily, boosted by limited supply and good demand. Orizhen Group (based in California) has developed an efficient process that can produce battery-grade lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide directly or via further refining from brines/solutions with minimal environmental impact. Our lithium-production process named Li-SEAM (Selective Extraction and Membrane process for Lithium). This process integrates a highly selective adsorption/desorption process for direct lithium extraction (DLE) from brines/solutions with a novel FRO (Facilitated Reverse Osmosis,also called OsRO) or FO (Forward Osmosis) membrane process for subsequent ultra-concentration and purification (UCP) of the lithium-laden eluant to reach a lithium concentration of 20 g/L or more. The DLE and the eluant UCP process are self-contained and can be modified independently for process enhancement. The eluant UCP process, in addition to FRO or FO, may also include reverse osmosis/nanofiltration (RO/NF), electrodialysis (ED), solution extraction, thermal evaporation processes, etc. The Li-SEAM process has the attributes of small production footprint, low energy consumption, low freshwater consumption, and minimal waste generation so that the environmental impact of lithium production can be minimized.
OsRO and OARO are alternate names for FRO and they are all designed/operated under the same principles mentioned above.