Process information
| Key Data Set Information | |
| Location | FI |
| Reference year | 2016 |
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| Use advice for data set | When using this data set for life cycle assessment, please take into account that the production processes for raw materials and any associated energy flows less than 1% are not included in the system boundary. This omission should be kept in mind for the completeness of the assessment and when comparing with data sets with different system boundaries. Users should also consider the geographical specificity of the data as it pertains to lithium spodumene sourced from Finland. |
| Technical purpose of product or process | The battery grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate produced by the Lithium Sulfate method from lithium spodumene concentrate sourced from Finland is intended for use in lithium-ion batteries, which are prevalent in portable electronics, electric vehicles, and grid storage solutions. |
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| General comment on data set | The future supply routes reviewed in this study are based on data gathered from technical reports and environmental impact assessment reports of several lithium mining and processing companies (Lithium Americas Corp., Minera Salar Blanco, Nemaska Lithium Inc., and Keliber Oy) that are at various stages of developing their lithium assets. These are considered future supply routes as they are not yet active but areexpected to be operational in 5–10 years. The lower lithium concentrations at these brine-based sources also reflect the possible future lithium grades of current supply routes from brines, whose lithium concentrations will likely decrease over the years due to extraction |
| Copyright | No |
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| Technological representativeness | |
| Technology description including background system | The future supply routes for spodumene are described in technical reports of operations at the Whabouchi site, Canada and the Central Ostrobothnia region, Finland. While neither Canada nor Finland are among the countries with the largest lithium reserves (USGS, 2021), they represent examples of new lithium supplies that might become exploited in response to increased lithium demand. The average lithium concentration in spodumene at the Whabouchi site is about 0.7% and in Central Ostrobothnia region it is 0.6%. In these future supply routes, concentrated spodumene is directly converted to LiOH⋅H2O without producing Li2CO3 as an intermediate. The datasets representing mining operations in Canada and Finland are based on the technical reports prepared for Nemaska Lithium Inc. (Golder Associates, 2013; Laferri´ere et al., 2012; Nemaska Lithium Inc., 2013; SENES Consultants Ltd., 2013) and Keliber Oy (Keliber Oy, 2020a, b; Sweco, 2016), respectively. Specific data for chemical inputs was not available for the LiOH⋅H2O production unit process (from concentrated spodumene) in the Nemaska Lithium reports. Therefore, the chemical usage in the Keliber Oy reports were used as proxy data when comparing the different lithium supplies. |
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Modelling and validation
Administrative information
Inputs and Outputs