Preparation and evaluation of α-Al₂O₃ supported lithium ion sieve membranes for Li⁺ extraction

Spinel lithium manganese oxide ion-sieves have been considered the most promising adsorbents to extract Li⁺ from brines and sea water. Here, we report a lithium ion-sieve which was successfully loaded onto tubular α-Al₂O₃ ceramic substrates by dipping crystallization and post-calcination method. The lithium manganese oxide Li₄Mn₅O₁₂ was first synthesized onto tubular α-Al₂O₃ ceramic substrates as the ion-sieve precursor (i.e. L-AA), and the corresponding lithium ion-sieve (i.e. H-AA) was obtained after acid pickling. The chemical and morphological properties of the ion-sieve were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Both L-AA and H-AA showed characteristic peaks of α-Al₂O₃ and cubic phase Li₄Mn₅O₁₂, and the peaks representing cubic phase could still exist after pickling. The lithium manganese oxide Li₄Mn₅O₁₂ could be uniformly loaded not only on the surface of α-Al₂O₃ substrates but also inside the pores. Moreover, we found that the equilibrium adsorption capacity of H-AA was 22.9 mg·g⁻¹. After 12 h adsorption, the adsorption balance was reached. After 5 cycles of adsorption, the adsorption capacity of H-AA was 60.88% of the initial adsorption capacity. The process of H-AA adsorption for Li⁺ correlated with pseudo-second order kinetic model and Langmuir model. Adsorption thermodynamic parameters regarding enthalpy (∆ H), Gibbs free energy (∆ G) and entropy (∆ S) were calculated. For the dynamic adsorption–desorption process of H-AA, the H-AA exhibited excellent adsorption performance to Li⁺ with the Li⁺ dynamic adsorption capacity of 9.74 mg·g⁻¹ and the Mn²⁺ dissolution loss rate of 0.99%. After 3 dynamic adsorption–desorption cycles, 80% of the initial dynamic adsorption capacity was still kept.