Chinese plant extracts critical rare metals from lithium waste in world first

China has launched a 500-tonne production line to extract rubidium and caesium from lithium waste.

A demonstration line in Jiangxi province – the world’s first with an annual capacity of 500 tonnes for continuous tower extraction and separation of low-grade rubidium and caesium – has achieved stable production, according to the Institute of Process Engineering under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Rubidium and caesium are critical to aerospace, quantum computing, biomedicine, new energy and other frontier fields.

But they do not exist in large amounts as independent minerals in the Earth’s crust. Instead, they occur as associated elements in lithium ores and salt-lake brines, at very low grades that make extraction extremely difficult.

By recovering them from waste left after lithium extraction from ore, China has extended its new energy industry production chain and strengthened the secure supply of rubidium, a strategic rare and precious metal.