Five 500 series cased peristaltic pumps from Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions are playing an important position in an indication plant at Cornish Lithium’s Shallow Geothermal Test Site in the UK.
Originally constructed to test the idea of extracting lithium from geothermal waters, Cornish Lithium is now working on an upgraded version of the test plant as its drilling program expands, finally with the aim of creating an environment friendly, sustainable and cost-effective lithium extraction provide chain.
The preliminary enquiry for pumps came from GeoCubed, a joint venture between Cornish Lithium and Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL). GEL owns a deep borehole web site at United Downs in Cornwall the place plans are in place to fee a £4 million ($5.2 million) pilot plant.
“GeoCubed’s process engineers helped us to design and commission the test plant ahead of the G7, which would run on shallow geothermal waters extracted from Cornish Lithium’s personal analysis boreholes,” Dr Rebecca Paisley, Exploration Geochemist at Cornish Lithium, stated.
Adam Matthews, Exploration Geologist at Cornish Lithium, added: “Our shallow web site centres on a borehole that we drilled in 2019. A special borehole pump [not Watson-Marlow] extracts the geothermal water [mildly saline, lithium-enriched water] and feeds into the demonstration processing plant.”
The 5 Watson-Marlow 530SN/R2 pumps serve two different parts of the take a look at plant, the primary of which extracts lithium from the waters by pumping the brine from a container up by way of a column containing numerous beads.
“The beads have an active ingredient on their floor that’s selective for lithium,” Paisley explained. “As water is pumped through the column, lithium ions attach to the beads. With the lithium separated, we use two Watson-Marlow 530s to pump an acidic answer in various concentrations by way of the column. The acid serves to take away lithium from the beads, which we then transfer to a separate container.
“The pumps are peristaltic, so nothing however the tube comes into contact with the acid answer.”
She added: “We’re using the remaining 530 series pumps to help understand what other by-products we can make from the water. For occasion, we can reuse the water for secondary processes in industry and agriculture. For this purpose, we’ve two other columns working in unison to strip all other elements from the water as we pump it through.”
According to Matthews, circulate fee was among the major causes for selecting Watson-Marlow pumps.
“The column wanted a move fee of 1-2 litres per minute to suit with our take a look at scale, so the 530 pumps had been perfect,” he says. “The different consideration was selecting between handbook or automated pumps. At the time, as a result of it was bench scale, we went for handbook, as we knew it would be easy to make adjustments whereas we were still experimenting with course of parameters. However, any future business lithium extraction system would of course benefit from full automation.
เกจวัดแรงดันลม10bar added: “The wonderful thing about having these five pumps is that we can use them to assist consider different applied sciences moving forward. Lithium extraction from the sort of waters we discover in Cornwall just isn’t undertaken anywhere else on the earth on any scale – the water chemistry here is unique.
“It is actually essential for us to undertake on-site take a look at work with quite lots of totally different companies and technologies. We need to devise probably the most environmentally accountable resolution using the optimum lithium restoration method, on the lowest potential operating value. Using native corporations is a half of our technique, notably as continuity of provide is important.”
To help fulfil the requirements of the next test plant, Cornish Lithium has enquired after extra 530SN/R2 pumps from Watson-Marlow.
“We’ve additionally requested a quote for a Qdos a hundred and twenty dosing pump from Watson-Marlow, so we will add a sure quantity of acid into the system and obtain pH steadiness,” Matthews says. “We’ll be doing more drilling in the coming 12 months, which can permit us to check our expertise on a quantity of sites.”
Share