As global demand for battery-grade lithium seems to be rising, China has revealed more expansion plans to explore and extract battery-grade lithium and manufacture Li-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
Chinese chemicals specialist Qing Hai Salt has begun the trial run at its 20,000mt lithium extraction facility in the Qinghai province for the battery-grade metal.
The project called Qarhan Salt Lake will have a limited capacity of 10,000mt until the test phase is complete, noted media reports on Aug 17. The unit is also estimated to produce 30,000mt of general lithium carbonate once it is fully operational.
Qing Hai specializes in the industrial production of potassium and sodium products especially salt. The company announced its foray into lithium extraction in December 2017 and the facility’s construction began in April of the following year.
Gangfeng to set up Li factories
The country’s battery manufacturer, Gangfeng LiEnergy plans to set up two gigafactories having capacities of 10GWh and 5GWh each.
Gangfeng has set aside an estimated CNY8.4bn ($1.3bn) for both projects in the Chongquing and Jiangxi areas of China. The Jiangxi factory is forecasted to be operational by 2023, noted media reports in early August.
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