Properties
Lithium carbonate, like almost all other lithium compounds, is soluble in water. The isolation of lithium from aqueous extracts of its ores capitalizes on this poor solubility. Its apparent solubility increases tenfold under a mild pressure of carbon dioxide; this effect is due to the formation of the metastable bicarbonate:
- Li2CO3 + CO2 + H2O → 2 LiHCO3
Lithium carbonate, and other carbonates of Group 1, do not decompose readily, unlike other carbonates. Li2CO3 decomposes at temperatures greater than 1,300 °C (1,570 K).
Read more about this topic: Lithium Carbonate
Famous quotes containing the word properties:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)