Spinel lithium manganese oxide ion-sieves have been considered the most promising adsorbents to extract Li

+

from brines and sea water. Here

we report a lithium ion-sieve which was successfully loaded onto tubular α-Al

2

O

3

ceramic substrates by dipping crystallization and post-calcination method. The lithium manganese oxide Li

4

Mn

5

O

12

was first synthesized onto tubular α-Al

2

O

3

ceramic substrates as the ion-sieve precursor (

i.e

. L-AA)

and the corresponding lithium ion-sieve (

i.e

. H-AA) was obtained after acid pickling. The chemical and morphological properties of the ion-sieve were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Both L-AA and H-AA showed characteristic peaks of α-Al

2

O

3

and cubic phase Li

4

Mn

5

O

12

and the peaks representing cubic phase could still exist after pickling. The lithium manganese oxide Li

4

Mn

5

O

12

could be uniformly loaded not only on the surface of α-Al

2

O

3

substrates but also inside the pores. Moreover

we found that the equilibrium adsorption capacity of H-AA was 22.9 mg·g

-1

. After 12 h adsorption

the adsorption balance was reached. After 5 cycles of adsorption

the adsorption capacity of H-AA was 60.88% of the initial adsorption capacity. The process of H-AA adsorption for Li

+

correlated with pseudo-second order kinetic model and Langmuir model. Adsorption thermodynamic parameters regarding enthalpy (Δ

H

)

Gibbs free energy (Δ

G

) and entropy (Δ

S

) were calculated. For the dynamic adsorption- desorption process of H-AA

the H-AA exhibited excellent adsorption performance to Li

+

with the Li

+

dynamic adsorption capacity of 9.74 mg·g

-1

and the Mn

2+

dissolution loss rate of 0.99%. After 3 dynamic adsorption-desorption cycles

80% of the initial dynamic adsorption capacity was still kept.