China starts industrial line to extract rubidium and caesium from lithium waste

China has launched the world's first industrial-scale production line dedicated to extracting rubidium and cesium from lithium production waste. The facility, located in the Jiangxi province, was developed through a partnership between the Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium corporation and the Institute of Engineering Process of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The plant has an annual processing capacity of 500 tons. It utilizes spent lithium-ion batteries and other lithium production tailings as raw materials. While the extraction of these elements was previously limited to laboratory settings, this industrial implementation aims to increase recycling profitability and reduce environmental impact by decreasing the volume of waste dumps. Rubidium (Rb) and cesium (Cs) are rare alkali metals essential for high-tech sectors. Their primary applications include the production of ultra-precise atomic clocks and sensors for quantum computing, as well as fuel cell components and specialized alloys for the aerospace industry.

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...