METHOD FOR CONTINUOUS MONITORING AND OPTIMIZATION OF THE RECOVERY PROCESS

Claims

Systems and methods for extracting elements of interest, such as lithium, from an aqueous material are described here. The systems typically use multiple vessels with selective media in each vessel to achieve the extraction of the element of interest. The vessels operate in a cyclical and permuted manner to switch between absorption and desorption operations by routing the flow currents to perform these operations between the vessels in programmed ways. Sensors configured to detect total dissolved solids, or a parameter related to total dissolved solids, are used to detect endpoints for mode switching and to determine other aspects of system performance.