Chinese plant extracts critical rare metals from lithium waste in world first

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Sep 15, 2026 #Australia, #biomedicine, #caesium, #Canada, #China, #China Mining News, #Chinese Academy of Sciences, #Institute of Process Engineering, #Jiangxi, #Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium, #lithium, #perovskite solar cells, #rubidium, #Sinomine Resource Group, #South China Morning Post (SCMP), #Zimbabwe

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Chinese plant extracts critical rare metals from lithium waste in world first

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A lithium battery production line at a factory in eastern China. Photo: AFP

Zhang Tongin BeijingPublished: 12:00pm, 15 Sep 2026Updated: 12:04pm, 15 Sep 2026China 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 and other frontier fields.Select VoiceSelect Speed1xAI-generated voice