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After being fine-ground and mixed with limestone, lepidolite ore from Africa is roasted in a giant kiln a t American Potash & Chemical's subsidiary, American Lithium Chiemicals, a t San Antonio, Tex. After roasting, soluble lithium and potassium salts are leached out of mixture, and from resulting solution, lithium hydroxide is recovered by concentration, evaporation

Its Name Comes from Lithos . . . . which is Greek, as are some aspects of today's lithium industry, among them, its statistics

J O H A N N AUGUST ARFVEDSON, a Swede,

discovered lithium in 1817. Between November 1953 and De­

cember 1955, at least $16.6 million worth of lithium chemicals capacity came on stream in this country. Esti­mates of present annual production capacity range between 25 and 50 million pounds of equivalent lithium carbonate; commercial sales in 1955 came to perhaps 9 million pounds.

Such sudden growth would certainly have surprised Arfvedson, and it has caused excitement in an American chemical industry which, since World

War II, ha s grown quite accustomed to rapid expans. Λ. What 's behind it?

T o begin with, four firms dominate the XJ. S. lithium industry. American Potash & Chemical Corp., at its plant at Tirona, Calif., makes lithium carbon­ate irom dilithium monosodium phos­phate recovered from Searles Lake brines. I n December 1955 American Pota_sh arid'Bikita Minerals (Private) Ltd, 9 started up the $6.6 million Ameri­can Lithium Chemicals plant at San Antonio, Tex., which makes lithium hydroxide from Rhodesian lepidolite (LiF-KF-Alo08.3Si02).

Foote Mineral, with a plant a t Exton, Pa., started u p a $3 million facility at Sunbright, Va., in November 1953 to make lithium hydroxide from spod-umene (Li02-Al203-4Si02) supplied by large deposits at Kings Mountain, N. C. Sunbright capacity had been increased substantially—some say more than doubled—by December 1955.

Lithium Corp. of America is also in on the Kings Mountain development. In January 1955 its plant at St. Louis Park, Minn., was joined by a $7 million plant at Bessemer City, N. C , to make Hthium carbonate and hydroxide.'

2 8 5 0 C & E N J U N E I I , 1956

Maywood Chemical Works, unlike the other three, has not made large capital expansions but is reportedly in­creasing production gradually at its Maywood, N . J., plant which processes mostly spodumene. Maywood is con­sidering moving (and supplementing) its processing plant to a point near a source of ore.

All four fums make a variety of lithium chemicals besides the basic ones, lithium hydroxide and carbonate, while Lithium Corp. and Maywood produce most of the lithium metal made. Maywood's current capacity is 25,000 pounds a month (total) of lithium and lithium hydride, and May-wood and Lithium Corp. between them turned out an estimated 200,000 pounds (maximum) of metallic lithium in 1955. Also, Foote has a small cell and American Potash has indicated its intention to produce metal. According to P . E . Landolt, the four-company total this year will be about 46.5 million pounds (carbonate equivalent).

Fortunately North America appears to have a far greater supply of lithium minerals than any other continent. Within the past two years many new sources of lithium minerals have been prospected for and established in a number of areas of Canada. In the U. S., of course, the two principal sources of lithium minerals are in South Dakota and North Carolina. Some showings of lithium minerals have been uncovered in Maine, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California, but these appear quite secondary to the others.

More Uses for Lithium Products

Numerous uses for lithium and its products are already well developed. Demand for such products has steadily increased. At present, production has not approached what has been esti­mated t o be the ultimate market po­tential i n demonstrated fields of appli­cation.

Li thium costs may not be in all cases too vital a factor. In many of its applications the amount of lithium used as compared with the amount of end product made is relatively insignificant; for example, in the degasification of metals, the lithium added would be in the order of 0.005 to 0.05%.

THE COVER: Lithium metal is made by electrolysis of a molten lithium chloride-potassium, chloride bath at Lithium Corp. of America's St. Louis Park plant.

Huge stack of lepidolite (left) from Bildta, Southern Rhodesia, is shown on arrival at American Potash & Chemical's subsidiary, American Lithium Chemi­cals. At right is pile of limestone used in manufacturing lithium hydroxide

Foote Mineral uses these storage silos for storing spodumene concentrate at its lithium chemicals plant at Sunbright, Va, Ore comes from Kings Mountain, N. C.

J U N E I I , 1956 C & E N 2 8 5 1

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In the production of low temperature greases, t he amount of hthium stéarate incorporated into the grease is approxi­mately 12 to 1 5 % of the weight of . the grease. The hthium hydroxide required for making the stéarate is also approxi­mately 12 to 15% of the stéarate. The ratio of the lithium hydroxide require­ment to the finished product would b e in the order of 1.5% Hthium hydroxide.

Therefore, an appreciable difference in t h e cost of the. lithium metal or hthium compound used would have very little effect on the cost of the end product. However, with the exception of very special uses, the total amount of Hthium required for a given field

.might b e very considerable, and some of Hthium's effects would b e marginal rather than major. Under such cir­cumstances the cost of lithium or its products becomes a vital one.

If lithium serves a unique purpose, as i t usually does, then cost considera­tions may diminish. However, if ade­quate material is not available or costs are too high, greater effort would b e made to find other means whereby a material such as lithium could be dis­placed.

Fortunately, the industry has now grown to a point where a sufficient number of large producers are available to make for a soundly competitive situation. Within the past few years the ra ted capacity of the lithium indus­try has grown to somehing like five times current commercial demand, the excess, presumably, going to the Gov­ernment. Among the industries using major amounts of lithium products are the following:

• Ceramics • Lubricating greases • Alkaline storage batteries,

batteries

• Metallurgical (including welding operations )

• Air conditioning • Pharmaceutical In addition there would be certain

government requirements, many of which are classified.

During the past two years, Hthium appeared to play an increasing part in the following fields:

• Nuclear developments • Production of high energy com­

pounds • Isotope development • Hea t transrer problems • Catalysts Lithium will likely assume a role of

greater importance in the metallurgical field in both ferrous and nonferrous alloys.

Organo-Hthiumi reactions challenge research workers in t he organic chemi­cal field. For example, dispersed me­tallic lithium served as a specific cata­lyst in Firestone's polymerization of isoprene to "natural rubber." T h e hthium costs practically nothing com­pared to the rubber , and some feel, therefore, that lithium dispersions might be a physical form of the metal

that would break the price- barriecr in certain applications."

Sudden Growth Unlikely

While lithium supply has reached a point at which i t cou ld support any major commercial développent, s u c h a development is not be l i eved likely to occur suddenly. The L·asic argument for gradual rather than, explosive growth is t h a t the propert ies of hthuum and its compounds a re just beginning to come into view. F o r one thing-, the producers have concerned themselves

dry This view shows a portion of the decrepitation kiln, looking toward t h e feed end, at Li thium Corp. of America's Bessemer City, N . C , l i thium chemicals plant

2 8 5 2 C&EN JUNE I I, 1956

more with process economies than wi th end uses because they already h a d mar­kets tha t could become substantial if the' price were right or at least lower. For another, the hthium shortage of 1953 and 1954 killed a significant amount of end-use research by poten­tial consumers.

Lithium producers still see more effi­cient processing as the shortest route to higher consumption in established markets like grease and ceramics. For instance, the lime process (Foote at Sunbright and American Lithium Chemicals at San Antonio) uses cheap raw materials and a minimum number of processing steps but involves a very large volume of materials compared to product volume. The acid process (Lithium Corp. at Bessemer Ci ty) , on the other hand , requires much less materials handling but uses relatively costly sulfuric acid and takes two extra steps to make Hthium hydroxide. In one man's opinion, the "ult imate" proc­ess has not yet been invented and any known or currently used process may be obsolete in five years. One cheer­ing note here, however, is Maywood's statement that it has plans in the offing which will reduce drastically the pro­duction costs for lithium metal and

hydride, a saving which will b e passed to the consumer.

Despite this past concern wi th proc­essing, Hthium producers today are ap­parently in a posit ion to pay more at­tention to their markets than in the past. In fact, one producer says it has

just about doubled both its product re­search and sales efforts in the past year. The lightest alkali metal might bear some watching. •

Based in part on "Lithium—A Unique Element" presented by P. E. Landolt, consulting engineer, before Commercial Chemical Development Association.

Both Lithium Corp. of America and Foote Mineral (pictured here.) have mining operations at Kings Mountain, N. Foote's lithium hydroxide plant is in Sunbright, Va., and Lithium Corp/s lithium hydroxide and carbonate plants i at St. Louis Park, Minn., and Bessemer City, N. C.

J U N E IT. 1 9 5 6 C & E N 2 8 5 3