Low-Pressure, Low-Temperature, and Low-Cost Production of Lithium Metal and Lithium Hydride

Both lithium metal and lithium hydride are critical materials for energy storage and nuclear reaction operation. Their current productions are energy-intensive and high-cost. This work reports a facile, low-temperature, low-pressure, low-power-consumption hydrogen plasma green method for lithium metal and lithium hydride production from lithium chloride instead of lithium oxide, whose common metal counterparts have been reported to be refined using high-temperature hydrogen plasma associated with much fewer economic advantages. The facile reduction of lithium chloride is ascribed to the strong halide affinity of hydrogen plasma that promotes the reduction of LiCl by hydrogen atoms to form lithium metal (LiCl + H • →Li + HCl) and the reaction of lithium with hydrogen atoms to generate lithium hydride (Li + H • → LiH). This low-temperature, low-pressure, low-power-consumption green hydrogen plasma could not reduce high lattice energies of lithium compounds Li 2 O and Li 2 CO 3 . The negligible reaction was observed even with the relatively low lattice energy lithium compound LiOH. This low-temperature, low-pressure, low-power-consumption green hydrogen plasma could provide a low-operation-cost method for construction metals production and critical metals production by refining their halides.