Abstract: A process (10) for the treatment of a lithium containing material (12), the process comprising the steps of: (i) Preparing a process solution from the lithium containing material (12); (ii) Passing the process solution from step (i) to a series of impurity removal steps, one of which is an HCl sparging step 58, thereby providing a substantially purified lithium chloride solution; and (iii) Passing the purified lithium chloride solution of step (ii) to an electrolysis step (70) thereby producing a lithium hydroxide solution. An additional step in which the lithium hydroxide solution produced in step (iii) is carbonated by passing compressed carbon dioxide (88) through the solution, thereby producing a lithium carbonate precipitate, is also disclosed.

Abstract: A process (10) for the treatment of a lithium containing material, the process comprising the steps of: (i) Preparing a process solution from the lithium containing material (12); (ii) Passing the process solution from step (i) to a series of impurity removal steps (36) thereby providing a substantially purified lithium chloride solution; and (iii) Passing the purified lithium chloride solution of step (ii) to an electrolysis step (70) thereby producing a lithium hydroxide solution.

Abstract: A process (10) for the production of lithium hydroxide, the process comprising the steps of: (i) Causticising lithium chloride (12) with sodium hydroxide (16) to produce a lithium hydroxide product; (ii) Collecting the solids resulting from the causticisation of step (i) and filtering (22) same; (iii) The filtered solids from step (ii) are passed to a heating step (32) in which anhydrous lithium hydroxide is produced; (iv) Filtering (34) the anhydrous lithium hydroxide product of step (iii); and (v) Quenching the anhydrous lithium hydroxide of step (iv) with water to produce lithium hydroxide monohydrate crystals.