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Author: Subject: Lithium from Batteries
Saerynide
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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 00:05


I didnt touch it, and I *definately* did not eat it :P It might've been from bits of airborne particles of carbonate or it slowly reacting with the oil and making something volatile? It also could've been from something in the battery and not the Li. There's something in there that smells really sweet and nice (if you take a whiff of the insides of the can, you'll know what i mean). But whatever it was, it wasnt just me :o

And I agree, I really dont think eating anything made from a battery is a good idea :P




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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 01:06


I had dreams of extracting lithium for the sole purpose of making LiCO3. However I read that this wasn't a very effective...stress reducer...so I never went through with it. In fact I remmeber someone saying that it wasn't worth my time or something like that. I don't know. Maybe it was here, or the hive, or somewhere else...Anyways, they seemed to know what they were talking about.

I am feeling rather gassy.




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tom haggen
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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 10:20


Quote:

However I read that this wasn't a very effective...stress reducer...


Of course it's not a stress reducer. It's for treating bi-polar disorder. The only effects it would have on someone with out the disease would probably be drowsiness. It's generally avoided as a prescribed medication due to the toxic nature of lithium, and interactions that can happen with serum lithium is already in the blood stream.

[Edited on 9-7-2004 by tom haggen]

[Edited on 9-7-2004 by tom haggen]




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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 10:39


Quote:
Originally posted by Saerynide:
There's something in there that smells really sweet and nice (if you take a whiff of the insides of the can, you'll know what i mean).


My battery kind of stunk but it did have a detectable sweetish component, so I can see where you're coming from. My mineral oil also had a very slight unpleasant smell to it. I did try to dilute the electrolyte in the oil in case it did react if I screwed up, so I didn't get it full strength. When you hydrolyzed some of your lithium, did you notice the smell of ammonia? I haven't tried, but i think it would be detectable.

One of my chem books shows this guy holding a roll of lithium foil intended for batteries about the size of a roll of film for an old video projector but wider and he had some unrolled onto his glove. In the caption the importance of humidity-free rooms is stressed, and he had a small white mask on. He looks really scared because he was sweating like crazy. I would guess it contained around 100 grams of lithium, but I can't really say because I'm recalling the picture from memory.




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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 10:56


Yeah it smelled like ammonia when I put some water on it. Made my brother run out of my room :D

I think I anyone would be really scared if they were holding lithium :D Whats the mask for though?

[Edited on 9-7-2004 by Saerynide]




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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 21:39


I was drying out some LiOH in a glass dish and a white film started developing on the glass. Was my glass dish corroding from the LiOH? Can I dry out LiOH in a metal container without corrosion?

Damm, I dropped some lithium into a glass of water and got a very nice reaction. Looks like another glass goes to the graveyard. l still don't really know what the white powder in my glass dish is. It's so abrasive on the glass it's unbelievable.

[Edited on 10-7-2004 by tom haggen]




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[*] posted on 9-7-2004 at 22:03


Wow your brother is one real wimp, just like mine. He kept pleading for me to stop hydrolyzing the few bits and pieces I decided to test. I guess we <i>should</i> be as terrified as them given the inherent dangers, but I myself am much too fascinated to completely stop. For my birthday, I asked my best friend if he could get some batteries from his dad as a present to me just to stockpile (they seem to be very storage stable) and it's not like my friend is the one paying.

I think the mask was for keeping water-laden breath from reaching the metal as easily. I recently acquired a similar old one that was found in the medical supplies around the house. I also remember the roll of lithium having thin black lines parallel to its edges as if a roller dispensed it. I don't remember whether there were gaps or not in the lines, but that's probably not very important at all. I wonder how hard it would be to take one of those rolls, hypothetically of course.

Edited after seeing tom haggen's post:
The white film may be lithium silicate precipitating if the hydroxide solution is concentrated, maybe even reinforced by the common ion effect of lithium ions. I don't think a metal container would corrode too badly if it doesn't normally in the presence of a salt e.g. iron.

[Edited on 7-10-2004 by blip]




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[*] posted on 10-7-2004 at 22:21


Why would you want to make rolls of lithium?



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[*] posted on 11-7-2004 at 18:32


Answered in a previous post: "One of my chem books shows this guy holding a roll of <b>lithium foil intended for batteries</b>. ..."

I wonder whether anyone has run into lithium-ion batteries thinking they would have the metal inside (they don't as I understand).




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[*] posted on 14-7-2004 at 13:13
Lithium


I just got some Li from 2 energizer e2 aa batteries.

Procedure- for the first battery, I cut a circle almost going through the battery outer wall, the circle was in the middle of the battery. Then I tried to cut all the way through the battery under mineral oil. That's not easy, don't try to replicate it unless you have something smaller and better than a hacksaw to cut with-very messy and slow. Then I used needlenosed pliers to pull off one side of the outer shell, then the other side. I dipped the rolled up insides into mineral oil and then stupidly thought that the iron sulfide was the lithium, and that the lithium was another roll of Al foil:o. I figured that while I was sawing open the battery, all of the lithium oxidized. After collecting all of the iron sulfide by scraping it off of the Al roll, and putting it in a bottle with mineral oil, getting rather aggrevated with my very poor quality lithium, :) I noticed the lithium roll. Ahh, that's what I was missing. This was rolled up and put in mineral oil.

I put the second battery in a vise, sawed a circle around it, cutting it in half. Several fires started, but they are easily put out by dripping mineral oil on the battery. Then I pulled out the roll and unrolled it. This time I just got the Lithium, rolled it up, and put it in the bottle. Good.

The smell during the whole operation was very, very, very bad. It was disgusting, revolting, asphixiating! Kind of like H2S, but worse somehow.

After doing this I feel sleepy and slightly incoherent.:(

Also, when I put Li in water I would say it smelled more like NaOH, probably because it is LiOH. :P I detected no ammonia smell.




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[*] posted on 14-7-2004 at 15:27


Oh god.... that smell deserves a spot in the best and worst smelling chemicals thread. I almost smells like a stink bomb.
When I unraveled my batteries there were two types of foil inside. One was alumminum I think, and the other was lithium foil por supuesto.




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[*] posted on 14-7-2004 at 20:14


At first, I thought the iron sulfide was the Li too! I was so disappointed to see that there was so little of it. After, I felt really stupid for failing to see that it sank in the oil and could not have been Li :P

Yeah, that iron sulfide smells SO bad. I kept on thinking it was like H2S also. Since I had the whole roll under oil, I didnt smell the iron sulfide too much. Mostly, it was that sweet smell I was smelling.

Was your lithium dark brown/black? It'll only make the ammonia smell in water if its covered in Li3N.

Hmmm, that's the second person to be affected by Li batteries :o

And why did the aluminum foil come at such a surprise? I mentioned it in the first post :P




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[*] posted on 14-7-2004 at 21:52


Well I can't even remember if the Li had nitrides on it. The front was bright, but I never looked at the back.

The Al foil wasn't a surprise, the Li foil was.;) I didn't read the first posts very carefully.




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[*] posted on 1-8-2004 at 17:17
Reply


Just for input of information in this thread, the engineers at energizer say there are exactly .98 grams of Li in a AA battery. The best material I have experienced to submerge Li in is Naphtha, It displaces H2O very well and when you retrieve the Li for a reaction a quick patting with a paper towel dries it completely so no contaminants are introduced into the reaction... What ever that reaction might be.. After the core is removed from its housing it should be quickly placed under a layer of Naphtha and unrolled, Using a casserole dish with about an inch of naphtha does the job fine, You can place coins alone the strip to hold it down until it is transfered to a clean container of Naphtha. This method will leave the Li silver in color instead of the blackened color that the opening post portrays. This happens seconds after it is exposed to O2...
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[*] posted on 1-8-2004 at 18:53


ah, so it's the iron sulfide that smells so bad. seriously awful stuff, that. i also got some smoke when i opened my first :\

i saw the pic of the H2O reaction. if you were thinking of wasting your Li, why didn't you use a conc acid instead of H2O?




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[*] posted on 1-8-2004 at 22:22


Oh no, I wasn't wasting the Li :P I was making sure it *was* Li by by making sure it reacted with water :P

Edit: typo

[Edited on 2-8-2004 by Saerynide]




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biggrin.gif posted on 2-8-2004 at 06:34


well, i was just saying that if you wanted to have some fun, you could have reacted it with a concentrated acid. -> much more vigorous reaction. actually, if you wanted to have a bit more fun you could have added some KCl or KNO3 to that mixture and replaced the K with Li yielding K metal. throw that in a beaker of conc acid and you'll definately blow up the beaker. it will ignite with a purple flame and go shooting around the surface in all random directions with much gas evolved. good stuff:D



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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 07:46


I dont think adding Li to a KCl solution would make K metal. The K atoms would react with the water as soon they're reduced.

Edit: typos again

[Edited on 2-8-2004 by Saerynide]




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shocked.gif posted on 2-8-2004 at 11:11


indeed. that's why i didn't say to make an aqueous solution;)



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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 12:29


You said "mixture"!



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mad.gif posted on 2-8-2004 at 12:43


mixtures aren't all aqueous solutions.
50mL HCl(l) and motor oil form a mixture but certainly not an aqueous solution. the reaction described above could work when submerged in motor oil




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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 13:15


Pyridine is the only thing I can think of at the moment that could be possibly used, AFAIK alkali meals don't react w/pyridine, don't know if it would dissolve your potassium salt, hard to get due to it being a contolled chemical, but if it dissolves KCl then it might work.



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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 13:16


No need to be mad. I wasnt being condescending. Sorry if it sounded that way (smilies really *are* indispensible...).

Now, before you get pissed at me again...

I wasnt expecting you to suggest something so insane as to liqueifying HCl, pouring on motor oil, then dunking metallic lithium into it and blowing up the room :D Therefore I assumed you meant aqueous solution :P

No hard feelings, k?




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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 13:38


Quote:

Pyridine is the only thing I can think of at the moment that could be possibly used, AFAIK alkali meals don't react w/pyridine


For working with the alkali metals many solvents can be used. Although I don't know exactly what you mean to use it for. But the alkali metals will not react with pyridine, ethylamine, acetonitrile, mineral oil, paraffin, and are recoverable from hydrazine, and ammonia without change.




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[*] posted on 2-8-2004 at 13:44


I was thinking, make a saturated solution of KCl in pyridine if pyridine will dissolve it, and adding Li(s) to precipitate potassium metal, and filtering in an inert atmosphere to protect the fine particles of potassium if it worked:D



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