A system and method for generating base water and precipitate, including combining produced water with seawater to precipitate barium sulfate from barium in the produced water and from sulfate in the seawater, and separating the precipitate to give the base water and the precipitate. The base water may have less than a specified amount of sulfate and be utilized for hydraulic fracturing fluid. The precipitate may give a weighting agent for drilling.

A platform for sequestering carbon dioxide using a body of water is described. The platform has a vessel for holding solid metal hydroxide and for exposing the solid metal hydroxide to a flow of water to create a solution of a metal hydroxide having a pH level. The solution containing metal hydroxide is released into the body of water, causing a reaction with the carbon dioxide present in the body of water, thereby producing metal carbonate/bicarbonate, thus sequestering the carbon dioxide. A choice of the metal in the metal hydroxide, a rate of the releasing the solution containing the metal hydroxide into the body of water, and a flow rate of the flow of water so that to substantially maintain the solution containing the metal hydroxide at the pH level that is defined as environmentally safe and not changing chemistry of seawater. A corresponding method is also provided.

This invention provides a method for efficiently separating magnesium and lithium from salt lake brine, and simultaneously preparing high-purity magnesium oxide and battery-grade lithium carbonate. The detailed processing steps are as follows: (1) adding urea into the brine to dissolve, (2) placing the solution into the reactor for hydrothermal reaction, the magnesium ion will precipitate and enter the solid phase; (3) filtering and drying the production to get the magnesium carbonate solid, while the lithium ion remains in the liquid phase; (4) after directly concentration and precipitation, the battery-grade lithium carbonate can be obtained, while the calcination of solid-phase product results in the high-purity magnesium oxide. In this method, urea is used as the precipitant to separate magnesium and lithium in salt lake without introducing any new metal ion, and the brine solution is not diluted. The solid product is white and fluffy powder, which is easy to filter and separate. The extraction rate of lithium is high than 94%, and the purity of MgO obtained by calcination is higher than 99.5%.

An automatic rainwater collection system, with a high degree of autonomy and sensitivity, which allows the collection and use of rainwater, in open spaces, areas of difficult access and/or lacking of water extraction systems, as well as in domestic spaces such as gardens or roofs, without additional adaptations for its use and which works with solar energy. The automatic rainwater collection system is conformed by: a flower-shaped obturable rainwater receiving element, which comprises: a plurality of internal petals and a plurality of external petals that can be opened or closed in an automated manner, a sensor with high sensitivity to droplet impacts and/or relative humidity, which is operatively connected to a motor to control the opening and closing of the plurality of petals of the rainwater receiving element; a support frame, which functions as a support for the obturable rainwater receiving element and as a water storage media; a modular system for filtering water, connected to said central media of water accumulation, which comprises a plurality of filtering modules, which provide different filtering options depending on the quantity and combination thereof in order to obtain different qualities of water for use in several activities; and a water storage media, which further functions as base and support of the collection system.

A process for recovery of lithium ions from a lithium-bearing brine includes contacting the lithium-bearing brine with a lithium ion sieve (where that LIS includes an oxide of titanium or niobium) in a first stirred reactor to form a lithium ion complex with the lithium ion sieve, and decomplexing the lithium ion from the lithium ion sieve in a second stirred reactor to form the lithium ion sieve and an acidic lithium salt eluate.

In one or more embodiments, the present invention relates to a method for producing a polyhydroxybutyrate-based resin. The method includes (a) disrupting or solubilizing microbial cells containing a polyhydroxybutyrate-based resin, and (b) separating the polyhydroxybutyrate-based resin from a composition obtained by the process (a). The process (a) and the process (b) use water with a calcium ion concentration (14.5 mg/L or less. The water used in the process (a) and the process (b) is preferably obtained by subjecting wastewater that is discharged from the production process of the polyhydroxybutyrate-based resin to microbial anaerobic and aerobic treatments, subsequently pre-filtration by a membrane bioreactor process, and further filtration with a calcium ion removal membrane This method provides the polyhydroxybutyrate-based resin with good color tone and high thermal stability.

The presently disclosed subject matter is generally directed to a system and method of reducing, reacting, and/or removing an oxidant or unwanted chemical species from a chemical stream. Particularly, the system and method include the use of one or more reductants that react with the undesired chemical species. The reductant and the chemical stream are added to a reactor and allowed to react for a desired amount of time. The reductant will reduce, react with, and/or remove the chemical species from the stream. The excess reductant and reaction products are then removed from the reactor, as described in more detail herein below.

A sewage treatment device includes a fluidized bed body, a reflux device and a chemical feeding device. The fluidized bed body is sequentially provided with a sedimentation zone, a transition zone and a fluidization zone from top to bottom. The reflux device is connected to the fluidized bed body through a reflux pipe. The reflux pipe extends into the fluidized bed body from the sedimentation zone, and the granularity of a crystal product can be controlled by changing the height of a reflux inlet at the bottom end of the reflux pipe in the fluidized bed body. By controlling the position of the reflux inlet of the reflux pipe in the fluidized bed body, combining product granularity requirements, and adjusting an insertion depth of the reflux pipe, the granularity of a final product can be flexibly regulated and controlled, and meanwhile, a product recovery rate is improved.

The present invention relates to a method for recovering lithium from brine, and provides a method for recovering lithium from brine, the method comprising: (a) an impurity removal step of adding a carbonate supply source to brine including lithium, magnesium and calcium to precipitate and remove magnesium and calcium impurities; (b) a pH adjusting step of adding an acid to the brine from which the impurities have been removed, to adjust the pH of the brine; (c) a lithium-aluminum compound recovery step of adding an aluminum supply source to the pH-adjusted brine to recover a lithium-aluminum compound; (d) a lithium sulfate and aluminum oxide formation step of adding the lithium-aluminum compound to a sulfur supply source and calcining same to form lithium sulfate and aluminum oxide; and (e) a lithium sulfate solution yield step of selectively dissolving lithium sulfate from among the formed lithium sulfate and aluminum oxide to yield a lithium sulfate solution.

A method including reacting, at a jobsite, a total dissolved solids (TDS) water with a gas comprising carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) in the presence of a proton-removing agent to produce a CO.sub.2-reduced gas and an aqueous product comprising water and a precipitate, wherein the TDS water comprises produced water, wherein the precipitate comprises one or more carbonates, and wherein the CO.sub.2-reduced gas comprises less CO.sub.2 than the gas comprising CO.sub.2; and separating at least a portion of the water from the aqueous product to provide a concentrated slurry of the precipitate and a TDS-reduced water, wherein the TDS-reduced water comprises less TDS than the TDS water.