DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-7 in the reply filed on September 1st, 2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 8-14 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on September 1st, 2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Marston (WO 2019/221932 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Marston teaches a process for selectively purifying a lithium product stream from an aqueous lithium salt-containing solution in a continuous mode (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053]-[0064]), said process comprising the steps of:
introducing said aqueous lithium salt-containing solution to an arrangement of three or more packed-bed columns in series each filled with a lithium selective sorbent (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], zones A, B, C, and D are in series), wherein at least two of said three or more columns are at an adsorption stage (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], loading zone B), with one at a leading lithium chloride adsorption stage (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], first set of 3 columns in loading zone B) and one or more at a trailing lithium chloride adsorption stage (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], following 5 sets of 3 columns in loading zone B), and at least one of said three or more columns is simultaneously at a lithium chloride desorption stage (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], elution zone D);
flowing said aqueous lithium salt-containing solution through said at least two of said three or more columns at a leading lithium chloride adsorption stage and a trailing lithium chloride adsorption stage to adsorb lithium chloride from the aqueous lithium salt-containing solution and respectively form a fully-saturated sorbent and a partially-saturated sorbent (Marston, Fig. 5, [0055], “The feedstock brine 413, which can be the polished geothermal brine (stream 54 in Figure 4A) or a salar, continental or other non-geothermal feedstock brine, is pumped to the adsorbent bed(s) 402 in the loading zone B with a predetermined elution time sufficient to completely or almost completely exhaust the lithium selective adsorbent, and the depleted brine exiting the loading zone B is sent to raffinate 414.”; Exhausting the lithium selective adsorbent would naturally cause the leading lithium chloride adsorption stage to first become fully-saturated, as the solution comes into contact with this stage first.);
flowing a desorbent fluid through said at least one of said three or more columns at a lithium chloride desorption stage to desorb lithium chloride from the fully-saturated sorbent in a column from a leading lithium chloride adsorption stage of a previous cycle in an eluate stream (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], “Brine fluid flow through the CCAD circuit 400 is controlled by pumping flow rates and/or predetermined indexing of a central multi-port valve system or of the adsorbent beds 402, creating a process where the adsorption beds 402 continually cycle through the individual process zones A, B, C and D.”; [0057], “Then, an eluant (stripping solution) 416 is pumped countercurrent to the adsorbent advance (fluid flow is illustrated as right to left, while the adsorbent beds movement is illustrated as left to right) into the elution zone D to produce an enhanced lithium product stream 417.” Thus, having cycled to the right, the previous leading lithium chloride adsorption stage column becomes a trailing adsorption stage column, and pumping eluant countercurrent is desorbing lithium chloride from the fully-saturated sorbent in a column from a leading lithium chloride adsorption stage of a previous cycle.); and
recovering a lithium product stream from the eluate stream (Marston, Fig. 5, [0056, enhanced lithium product stream 417), wherein when the lithium selective sorbent in said column at a leading lithium chloride adsorption stage is fully-saturated with lithium chloride, said column transitions directly to said lithium chloride desorption stage to desorb lithium chloride once appropriate void volume is displaced (Marston, Fig. 5, [0056]); said column at a trailing lithium chloride adsorption stage transitions directly to said leading lithium chloride adsorption stage for further adsorption of lithium chloride, and said column at a lithium chloride desorption stage transitions directly to said trailing lithium chloride adsorption stage for initial adsorption of lithium chloride once appropriate void volume is displaced (Marston, Fig. 5, [0053], “Brine fluid flow through the CCAD circuit 400 is controlled by pumping flow rates and/or predetermined indexing of a central multi-port valve system or of the adsorbent beds 402, creating a process where the adsorption beds 402 continually cycle through the individual process zones A, B, C and D.”; [0056]) without any intermediate washing stages of the media between any of said transitions (Marston, Fig. 5).
Regarding claim 2, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein said aqueous lithium salt-containing solution is a naturally occurring solution or a synthetic solution (Marston, [0001]).
Regarding claim 3, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein said lithium selective sorbent is a molecular sieve adsorbent (Marston, [0060]).
Regarding claim 4, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein said desorption step in step c) is counter current with respect to said adsorption stage in step b) (Marston, Fig. 5, [0057]).
Regarding claim 5, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein the desorbent fluid is water (Marston, [0057]).
Regarding claim 6, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein the desorbent fluid is a recycled process stream (Marston, [0058], eluant 416 produced from recycle stream 419).
Regarding claim 7, Marston teaches the process of claim 1, as discussed above, wherein the aqueous lithium salt-containing solution is subject to a pre-treatment step of mechanical pre-treatment (Marston, [0052], “In addition, GMF can be used to reduce total suspended solids (TSS) to below 10 ppm before introducing the brine solution.” GMF is granular media filtration; “The bulk of the organic material can be removed by a device such as an API oil-water separator.”).
Conclusion
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/ZACHARY JOHN BAUM/Examiner, Art Unit 1736
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