Open Access Conference Proceedings

Lithium is a commodity undergoing through significant expansion recently. At present, lithium accumulators and batteries rank among very promising means for long-term accumulation of electricity. The main objective of this study was to obtain this metallic element from the feedstock from the locality Cínovec in the Ore Mountains. From the feedstock, we also managed to obtain rubidium and cesium. For materials obtained, detailed mechanical and physical characteristics was carried out, which includes e.g. friction parameters, material compressibility. In the procedural part, magnetic separation was applied to obtain a good quality concentrate with the content of Li, Rb, and Cs. Subsequently, it was compared how mechanical and physical characteristics of the resulting products changed compared to each other and to the original material. It is clear from the first results that the choice of the process of magnetic separation to obtain a high-quality concentrate was very successful. The concentrates contained up to 1.4 wt.% of Li, 0.9 wt.% of Rb, and 0.02 wt.% of Cs. Moreover, after separation, the angle of external friction of the resulting concentrate was reduced to a value of approximately around 18° in all samples. The compression index of the concentrate was twice as high as in the other measured samples, which corresponds to an average susceptibility of the material to compression.

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