Synthesis of lithium ferrite and its solubility in water

The structural, electrochemical and magnetic properties of lithium ferrite have been widely studied, but the influence of structure on the solubility has seldom been reported. In this work, we investigated how structure affected the solubility of lithium ferrite in water. Lithium ferrites were synthesised by the solid state method. Structures of the reaction products were determined by X-ray diffraction. It was found that all products were mainly LiFeO2 and some had a few byproducts of LiFe5O8. Aqueous processing of the powders had little effect on the structure of lithium ferrite. The solubility of lithium ferrites in water was measured by induced couple plasma mass spectra (ICP-MS). The solubility decreased slightly with increasing molar ratio of α-Fe2O3 to Li2CO3, but solubility of all the products is lower than 1 wt-%. The solubility increases with the milling speed, but lower than 1 wt-%.