It is one of only a few natural primary sources of lithium and is therefore currently in high demand as a battery mineral due to the current use in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries. The lithium contained within spodumene can only be extracted by careful hydroleaching and only when the mineral is in the form of β-spodumene, which is achieved after high-temperature treatment that converts the natural state (α-spodumene), with a monoclinic structure, to a re-crystallised form (β-spodumene), with a tetragonal structure. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is one of the few techniques that can identify this change in structure, which is critical information for lithium extraction and recovery processes.
In this example, we have examined spodumene from a pegmatitic dyke from the Heikinkangas deposit in the Kaustinen area of Finland (see GTK report 1 & GTK report 2). This cost-effective technique can also accurately quantify any impurities present in spodumene, which in this case included quartz.
