A method and apparatus for processing a material are provided, the material being the upper layer from a metal melting process, the material containing one or more salts, the material containing one or more metals, the salts and/or metals being recycled as a result of the method/apparatus. The method includes feeding the material to a leaching step; obtaining a leachate from the leaching step; feeding the leachate to a drying step or spray drying step; obtaining a solid from the drying step or spray drying step. Off gases from the leaching step are used to provide heat to the drying step. The drying step provides a product well suited to being turned into pellets for reuse.

Processes are provided in which successive steps of hydrometallurgical value extraction may be carried out using the products of carbon capture and an electrolytic reagent-generating process. The electrolytic process provides an acid leachant and an alkali hydroxide, with the alkali hydroxide then available for use either directly as a precipitant in the hydrometallurgical steps, or available for conversion by carbon capture to an alkali metal carbonate that can in turn be used as the precipitant in the selective hydrometallurgical steps.

Disclosed herein are acid-base leaching methods and systems. Specifically, the systems and methods can include reacting a feed material comprising at least two metals selected from the group consisting of iron, magnesium, and calcium with a weak acid to produce a first leachate comprising ions of the at least two metals and an insoluble product; reacting the first leachate with a base to produce a first solid product comprising a first metal and a second leachate comprising ions of a second metal different from the first metal; and reacting the second leachate with the base to produce a second solid product comprising the second metal and a third leachate.

A method of extracting lithium from spodumene and meanwhile recovering low iron and low sulfur silicon aluminum micro-powder, high purity gypsum, tantalum niobium concentrate and lithium rich iron material includes: mixing and leaching the lithium extraction acid clinker of spodumene with water; filtering the leached pulp to obtain the filtrate and the filter residue; neutralizing the filtrate; filtering the neutralized pulp to obtain the filtrate and high purity gypsum, extracting lithium from the filtrate to obtain lithium salt; neutralizing and mixing the filter residue to obtain the coarse and fine particles by classification; carrying out weak magnetic separation of fine particles to obtain lithium rich iron material and non-magnetic material; and carrying out strong magnetic separation, strong magnetic material gravity separation and tantalum niobium crude concentrate pickling on the non-magnetic material to obtain tantalum niobium concentrate.

A system for carrying out size reduction of battery materials under immersion conditions can include a housing containing an immersion liquid and at least a first comminuting device submerged in the immersion liquid and configured to cause a size reduction of the battery materials to form first reduced-size battery materials, and at least a first outlet through which a size-reduced feed stream comprising a black mass solid material and an electrolyte materials entrained within the immersion liquid can exit the comminuting apparatus. At least a first separator may be configured to separate the size-reduced feed stream into at least a first stream that comprises the black mass solid material liberated from the battery materials and a retained portion of the immersion liquid having entrained electrolyte materials, and a second stream comprising a second portion of the immersion liquid having entrained electrolyte materials.

An object to be solved by the present invention is to provide a method for extracting aluminum from an acid dissolution solution without causing precipitation of aluminum. The method for extracting aluminum of the present invention includes an aluminum extraction step of mixing an acid dissolution solution containing aluminum with an organic solvent containing mono-2-ethylhexyl (2-ethylhexyl)phosphonate, and extracting aluminum from this acid dissolution solution under the condition of an equilibrium pH less than 1.8. If this acid dissolution solution further contains fluorine, the method for extracting aluminum of the present invention includes a fluorine separation and removal step of adjusting the aluminum concentration of the raffinate in an arbitrary range, and adjusting the equilibrium pH to 2 to 7 to generate aluminum hydroxide, thereby coprecipitating fluorine for solid-liquid separation.

A process and system are disclosed for producing a lithium product from a solution comprising lithium nitrate. The solution comprising lithium nitrate can be obtained by reacting a lithium-containing metal silicate with nitric acid. The process and system comprise subjecting the solution comprising lithium nitrate to a first thermal treatment procedure (in one or more heated vessels) in which water and nitric acid (when present) are removed, and whereby a resultant lithium nitrate-rich crystal slurry is heated to produce a molten liquid. The process and system also comprise passing the molten liquid to a second thermal treatment procedure (in a further-heated vessel) in which the molten liquid is heated to substantially decompose lithium nitrate to lithium oxide.

The present disclosure includes systems and methods for beneficiating bauxite residue. The system may comprise a first reaction vessel configured to receive a first stream comprising vanadic acid (H.sub.3VO.sub.4); and a second stream comprising an alkaline solution. The system may comprise a third stream passed from the first reaction vessel. The third stream may comprise a metavanadate salt. The system may comprise a filter configured to separate a vanadium-rich stream from the third stream. The system may comprise a second reaction vessel configured to receive a fourth stream comprising scandium carbonate (Sc.sub.2(CO.sub.3).sub.3) and a fifth stream comprising an organic acid.

Disclosed herein are acid-base leaching methods and systems. Specifically, the systems and methods can include supplying an iron and/or aluminum feed material and an acid to a first reaction chamber; supplying a first leachate comprising iron and/or aluminum salts or cations from the first reaction chamber and a calcium feed material to a second reaction chamber to form a solid comprising iron and/or aluminum; supplying a second leachate from the second reaction chamber comprising alkaline earth metal salts or cations and a base to a third reaction chamber to form a precipitated alkaline earth metal product.

Disclosed is a treatment system for removing iron-aluminum-chromium reaction products in leaching solution of laterite nickel ore, comprising a reaction tank, a lifting assembly, a flushing assembly, and a receiving box. The lifting assembly comprises a rotating shaft, a net pouch, and a connecting rod. The rotating shaft is rotatably connected to the reaction tank and is connected to the net pouch via the connecting rod; the rotation path of the net pouch covers and adheres to the inner bottom wall of the reaction tank, and it can be rotated to a first position and a second position; the receiving box can slide to a position directly below the net pouch at the second position. This solution addresses the current issues of requiring multiple thickeners for solid-liquid separation, which results in large equipment size and inconvenience in use.