Skip to Content
Merck
All Photos(2)

Key Documents

930946

Sigma-Aldrich

Lithium nitrate

greener alternative

battery grade, anhydrous, ≥99.9% trace metals basis

Synonym(s):

Lithium salt of nitric acid

Sign Into View Organizational & Contract Pricing


About This Item

Linear Formula:
LiNO3
CAS Number:
Molecular Weight:
68.95
MDL number:
UNSPSC Code:
12352302

grade

anhydrous
battery grade

Quality Level

Assay

≥99.9% trace metals basis

form

powder

greener alternative product characteristics

Design for Energy Efficiency
Learn more about the Principles of Green Chemistry.

impurities

≤0.5 wt. % H2O
≤1000 ppm (trace metals analysis)

mp

264 °C (lit.)

solubility

H2O: soluble (highly soluble(lit.))
acetone: soluble ((lit.))
alcohols: soluble ((lit.))

anion traces

chloride (Cl-): ≤500 ppm
sulfate (SO42-): ≤200 ppm

application(s)

battery manufacturing

greener alternative category

SMILES string

[Li+].[O-][N+]([O-])=O

InChI

1S/Li.NO3/c;2-1(3)4/q+1;-1

InChI key

IIPYXGDZVMZOAP-UHFFFAOYSA-N

Looking for similar products? Visit Product Comparison Guide

General description

Anhydrous lithium nitrate is a white, crystalline salt. The anhydrous form is hygroscopic and deliquescent. The salt is soluble in water, ethanol, methanol, pyridine, ammonia, and acetone. Like some other metal nitrates, lithium nitrate has a low melting point of only 264 °C, and decomposes above 600 °C. Because of its low melting point, it is used to produce low-melting fused-salt mixtures in ceramics and heat-exchange media.
Lithium nitrate is produced by the acid-base reaction between nitric acid and lithium carbonate, which evolves carbon dioxide and water. The resulting material is dried, purified, and heated to form the anhydrous product.
We are committed to bringing you Greener Alternative Products, which adhere to one or more of The 12 Principles of Greener Chemistry. This product has been enhanced for energy efficiency. Click here for more information.

Application

Researchers and manufacturers use lithium nitrate in the preparation of many lithium compounds, most notably lithium nickel oxide (LiNiO2) and lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4). One common strategy for synthesizing these lithium metal oxides involves a high-temperature reaction of lithium nitrate with a metal carbonate, like nickel carbonate, or with a metal oxide, like manganese oxide. At temperatures above 650 °C, lithium nitrate evolves oxygen gas and nitrogen dioxide gas and decomposes through a complex process into lithium oxide, which reacts with the metal precursors to form the tertiary or quaternary lithium metal oxides. Researchers have used this technique to prepare exciting new materials, like LiAl0.25Ni0.75O2 as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries and LiGa5O8 as a phosphor for optical information storage.
Because lithium nitrate is soluble in water, researchers also use lithium nitrate in the synthesis of lithium compounds using a host of solution-based chemistries. For example, microwave-induced combustion using solutions of lithium nitrate has yielded olivine-type lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2), and lithium titanium oxides (ex. Li4Ti5O12 and Li2TiO3). Hydrothermal processing, sol-gel processing, spray pyrolysis, co-precipitation pre-processing, and Li emulsion-drying methods have all used lithium nitrate as a reactant to form lithium metal oxides. These techniques can yield controlled particle size, grain size, crystallinity, or facilitate the introduction of dopants for engineering the properties of the products, often explored for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.
Our battery grade lithium nitrate with ≥99.9% trace metals purity and low chloride and sulfate impurities, is designed as a precursor for cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

Pictograms

Flame over circleExclamation mark

Signal Word

Warning

Hazard Statements

Hazard Classifications

Acute Tox. 4 Oral - Eye Irrit. 2 - Ox. Sol. 3

Storage Class Code

5.1B - Oxidizing hazardous materials

WGK

WGK 1

Flash Point(F)

Not applicable

Flash Point(C)

Not applicable


Certificates of Analysis (COA)

Search for Certificates of Analysis (COA) by entering the products Lot/Batch Number. Lot and Batch Numbers can be found on a product’s label following the words ‘Lot’ or ‘Batch’.

Already Own This Product?

Find documentation for the products that you have recently purchased in the Document Library.

Visit the Document Library

A review of recent developments in the synthesis procedures of lithium iron phosphate powders.
Jugovic D, et al.
Journal of Power Sources, 190, 538-544 (2009)
Feng Liu et al.
Scientific reports, 3, 1554-1554 (2013-03-28)
In conventional photostimulable storage phosphors, the optical information written by x-ray or ultraviolet irradiation is usually read out as a visible photostimulated luminescence (PSL) signal under the stimulation of a low-energy light with appropriate wavelength. Unlike the transient PSL, here

Our team of scientists has experience in all areas of research including Life Science, Material Science, Chemical Synthesis, Chromatography, Analytical and many others.

Contact Technical Service