Five 500 series cased peristaltic pumps from Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions are playing an important function in an illustration 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 engaged on an upgraded model of the test plant as its drilling program expands, in the end with the aim of developing an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective lithium extraction provide chain.
The initial 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 the place plans are in place to fee a £4 million ($5.2 million) pilot plant.
“GeoCubed’s process engineers helped us to design and commission the take a look at plant forward of the G7, which would run on shallow geothermal waters extracted from Cornish Lithium’s own analysis boreholes,” Dr Rebecca Paisley, Exploration Geochemist at Cornish Lithium, said.
Adam Matthews, Exploration Geologist at Cornish Lithium, added: “Our shallow site centres on a borehole that we drilled in 2019. A particular borehole pump [not Watson-Marlow] extracts the geothermal water [mildly saline, lithium-enriched water] and feeds into the demonstration processing plant.”
The five Watson-Marlow 530SN/R2 pumps serve two totally different components of the check plant, the primary of which extracts lithium from the waters by pumping the brine from a container up via a column containing a giant quantity of beads.
“The beads have an lively ingredient on their surface that is selective for lithium,” Paisley defined. “As water is pumped by way of the column, lithium ions connect to the beads. With the lithium separated, we use two Watson-Marlow 530s to pump an acidic solution in various concentrations via the column. The acid serves to remove lithium from the beads, which we then switch 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 series pumps to help understand what different by-products we will make from the water. For instance, we can reuse the water for secondary processes in industry and agriculture. For this reason, we now have two other columns working in unison to strip all different parts from the water as we pump it through.”
According to Matthews, move fee was among the major reasons for choosing Watson-Marlow pumps.
“The column wanted a flow rate of 1-2 litres per minute to fit with our test scale, so the 530 pumps have been perfect,” he says. “The different consideration was selecting between handbook or automated pumps. At the time, because it was bench scale, we went for manual, as we knew it would be easy to make changes while we were nonetheless experimenting with course of parameters. However, ร้านซ่อมเครื่องวัดความดัน would in fact reap the benefits of full automation.
Paisley added: “The great thing about having these five pumps is that we are ready to use them to assist consider different technologies moving ahead. Lithium extraction from the kind of waters we discover in Cornwall isn’t undertaken anywhere else on the planet on any scale – the water chemistry here is exclusive.
“It is basically essential for us to undertake on-site test work with a selection of different corporations and applied sciences. We want to devise probably the most environmentally accountable solution using the optimum lithium recovery methodology, at the lowest potential operating value. Using native corporations is a part of our strategy, notably as continuity of provide is significant.”
To assist fulfil the necessities of the next take a look at plant, Cornish Lithium has enquired after more 530SN/R2 pumps from Watson-Marlow.
“We’ve additionally requested a quote for a Qdos 120 dosing pump from Watson-Marlow, so we are ready to add a sure amount of acid into the system and obtain pH steadiness,” Matthews says. “We’ll be doing more drilling within the coming 12 months, which can allow us to test our technology on multiple sites.”
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