Lithium (Li) is a key resource driving the rapid growth of the electric vehicle industry globally, with demand and prices continually on the rise. To address the limited reserves of major lithium sources such as rock and brine, research is underway on seawater Li extraction using electrodialysis and Li-ion selective membranes. Lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO), an oxide solid electrolyte for all-solid-state batteries, is a promising Li-ion selective membrane. An important factor in enhancing its performance is employing the powder synthesis process. In this study, the LLTO powder is prepared using two synthesis methods: sol-gel reaction (SGR) and solid-state reaction (SSR). Additionally, the powder size and uniformity are compared, which are indices related to membrane performance. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy are employed for determining characterization, with crystallite size analysis through the full width at half maximum parameter for the powders prepared using the two synthetic methods. The findings reveal that the powder SGR-synthesized powder exhibits smaller and more uniform characteristics (0.68 times smaller crystal size) than its SSR counterpart. This discovery lays the groundwork for optimizing the powder manufacturing process of LLTO membranes, making them more suitable for various applications, including manufacturing high-performance membranes or mass production of membranes.

The global water shortage is getting more attention by global climate change. And water demand rapidly increases due to industrialization and population growth. Desalination technology is being expected as an alternative water supply method. Desalination technology requires low energy or maintenance costs, making it a competible next generation technology, with examples such as forward osmosis (FO), membrane distillation (MD), capacitive deionization (CDI), and electrodialysis (ED) to compete with reverse osmosis (RO). In order to identify recent research trends in desalination technologies (FO, MD, RO, CDI, and ED) between 2000-2020, a bibliometric analysis was conducted in the current study. The number of published papers in desalination technology have increased in Desalination and Journal of Membrane Science mainly. Moreover, it was found that FO, MD, RO, CDI, and ED technologies have been applied in various research areas including electrochemical, food processing and carbon-based material synthesis. Recent research topics according to the desalination technologies were also identified.