Five 500 sequence cased peristaltic pumps from Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions are playing an important position in an indication plant at Cornish Lithium’s Shallow Geothermal Test Site in the UK.
Originally built to test the concept of extracting lithium from geothermal waters, Cornish Lithium is now working on an upgraded version of the test plant as its drilling program expands, ultimately with the goal of growing an environment friendly, sustainable and cost-effective lithium extraction provide chain.
The preliminary enquiry for pumps got here from GeoCubed, a joint venture between Cornish Lithium and Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL). GEL owns a deep borehole website at United Downs in Cornwall where plans are in place to fee a £4 million ($5.2 million) pilot plant.
“GeoCubed’s course of engineers helped us to design and commission the test plant forward of the G7, which might run on shallow geothermal waters extracted from Cornish Lithium’s own analysis boreholes,” Dr Rebecca Paisley, Exploration Geochemist at Cornish Lithium, stated.
Adam Matthews, Exploration Geologist at Cornish Lithium, added: “Our shallow web site centres on a borehole that we drilled in 2019. A special borehole pump [not Watson-Marlow] extracts the geothermal water [mildly saline, lithium-enriched water] and feeds into the demonstration processing plant.”
The 5 Watson-Marlow 530SN/R2 pumps serve two completely different elements of the test plant, the primary of which extracts lithium from the waters by pumping the brine from a container up via a column containing numerous beads.
“ Psycho have an lively ingredient on their surface that is selective for lithium,” Paisley explained. “As water is pumped through the column, lithium ions attach to the beads. With the lithium separated, we use two Watson-Marlow 530s to pump an acidic resolution in numerous concentrations by way of the column. The acid serves to remove lithium from the beads, which we then transfer to a separate container.
“The pumps are peristaltic, so nothing but the tube comes into contact with the acid solution.”
She added: “We’re using the remaining 530 sequence pumps to help understand what other by-products we can make from the water. For occasion, we can reuse the water for secondary processes in business and agriculture. For this purpose, we have two other columns working in unison to strip all other elements from the water as we pump it via.”
According to Matthews, flow price was among the main reasons for choosing Watson-Marlow pumps.
“The column wanted a flow fee of 1-2 litres per minute to suit with our take a look at scale, so the 530 pumps had been best,” he says. “The other consideration was selecting between manual or automated pumps. At the time, because it was bench scale, we went for guide, as we knew it would be straightforward to make changes whereas we had been nonetheless experimenting with course of parameters. However, any future industrial lithium extraction system would after all benefit from full automation.
Paisley added: “The beauty of having these five pumps is that we will use them to help evaluate other applied sciences moving forward. Lithium extraction from the sort of waters we discover in Cornwall just isn’t undertaken wherever else on the planet on any scale – the water chemistry right here is unique.
“It is actually necessary for us to undertake on-site test work with a variety of different companies and applied sciences. We need to devise the most environmentally responsible answer utilizing the optimum lithium restoration technique, on the lowest possible working value. Using local firms is part of our technique, notably as continuity of provide is significant.”
To help fulfil the requirements of the next check plant, Cornish Lithium has enquired after more 530SN/R2 pumps from Watson-Marlow.
“We’ve also requested a quote for a Qdos a hundred and twenty dosing pump from Watson-Marlow, so we are ready to add a certain amount of acid into the system and obtain pH balance,” Matthews says. “We’ll be doing extra drilling in the coming 12 months, which is in a position to enable us to check our know-how on a number of websites.”
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