Lithium has been used as raw material of rechargeable battery for mobile electric appliances, glass, aluminum alloy. Especially, lithium ion battery (LIB) is used as an energy source for electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHV), due to its high electric capacity. By such situation, the demand of lithium is significantly increased, and the new resources are eager to develop. Lithium is commonly contained in the various brine, and salt lake brine is an important resource. Additionally, there is a deal of interest in the lithium resource dissolved in seawater. For the recovery of lithium from seawater, overcome of selective recovery of lithium is necessary against the large amounts of cations.

In this paper, from the view point of lithium recovery, the present and prospective circumstances of lithium resources are initially outlined. The characteristics of lithium recovery technology, such as the performance of lithium adsorbents of spinel types of manganese dioxide (λ-MnO₂) with high lithium selectivity and effective granulation methods, as well as a lithium recovery process using adsorption columns are summarized. And the application for practical recovery of lithium from seawater using pilot plant is described. In addition, as an attractive application of the process we developed, the recovery process of lithium from brine of Uyuni Salt Lake in Bolivia using adsorption technology is mentioned.

Molybdenum and zirconium in high-level liquid waste (HLLW) are known to disturb the vitrification process of the nuclear wastes, losing the chemical stability of the vitrified wastes. Therefore, these elements should be removed from HLLW in advance. In this study, we examined the separation behavior of Zr(IV) and Mo(VI) in a biphasic system consisting of HNO₃(aq) and betainium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([Hbet][Tf₂N]) ionic liquid. As a result, the extraction of Zr(IV) was highly efficient (>98.2％) at [HNO₃]＝0.01–0.3 mol dm-³. In contrast, precipitation of Mo(VI) was observed in relatively high yield (>86.0％) at [HNO₃]＝0.01–0.1 mol dm-³. Based on these results, it was suggested that [Hbet][Tf₂N] can be employed to separate Zr(IV) and Mo(VI) from HLLW. In addition, we have clarified that the carboxy group of Hbet⁺ is involved in the extraction and the precipitation of Zr(IV) and Mo(VI), respectively, as nothing has happened in use of trimethylpropylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([TMPA][Tf₂N]) bearing no carboxy groups. Furthermore, we have also demonstrated that the extracted Zr(IV) can be recovered in high efficiency by back-extraction from [Hbet][Tf₂N] upon contact with an H₂C₂O₄ aq.

A synthetic procedure in laboratory for a few tens of grams of fluorine micas was established. A reusable silicon-carbide crucible was chosen and the sublimation of contents was prevented by fixing with a refractory alloy jacket. Although the raw products had been gotten mixed with impurities, hydraulic elutriation could purify them and could get the final products of synthetic fluorine micas, e.g. Na-form taeniolite. These synthetic fluorine micas exhibited ion-exchange reactions for cesium ion.