Decarbonising the production of lithium chemicals

In your PhD project, you will invent technologies and help to implement them to decarbonise the production of lithium chemicals, especially lithium hydroxide, refined from spodumene ores in Australia. At present, these ores fulfill 55 % of the worldwide demand for lithium. You will work closely with your academic supervisors at Charles Darwin University (Professor Bogdan Dlugogorski and Dr David Ompong) and the industrial advisor at Tianqi Lithium Kwinana in Perth (Dr Hazel Lim). You will be immersed in a highly productive research environment, focussed on outcomes, interacting daily with your supervisors and advisors and other PhD Scholars. Your work will make great practical impact on avoiding the emissions of large amounts of CO2 in Australia and improving the competitiveness of advanced Australian manufacturing industry. Initially, in your research, you will target the most energy intensive steps in converting spodumene to lithium hydroxide, such as the calcination of spodumene concentrate. Currently, this step comes to pass in rotary kilns fired by natural gas, operating at 1100 °C, demanding about 3 GJ/(t spodumene concentrate). During your PhD you will hold HDR Internship at Tianqi Lithium Kwinana’s R&D Laboratory in Perth.