TRENDS OF THE YEARS: SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW ANALYSIS BASED ON THE METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ELECTROMIGRATION PROCESS

Green emerging technologies are needed for the growing global demand economy and to respond to environmental problems caused by industrialization. The most significant global issue is the transition from fossil fuel to sustainable green energy. Even if a high abundance of lithium isotopes means suitable materials for nuclear or electrical industries, the currently used method for producing lithium isotopes is associated with severe Hg environmental pollution. To achieve global targets assumed to mitigate climate change and environmental pollution, several attempts to find promising eco-friendly alternatives indicated electromigration separation as the most suitable method. Here, we applied a systematic literature synthesis using the PRISMA procedure to review peer-reviewed literature that focuses on the technologies and methodologies for the separation of 6Li and 7Li. Documents were extracted from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases and were subjected to quantitative and qualitative assessment based on co-occurrence analysis. We evaluated the limitations of existing methods and technologies, creating syntheses with characteristics and performances of the crown ethers used in the separation process. The progress in developing crown ethers with increased action capacity in the separation process of 6Li and 7Li ions was detailed. The main conclusion was that the analyzed methods are feasible for performing the process of separating the 6Li and 7Li isotopes, considering the limitation of solubility and the high cost of production.