[Domcii]

Hello there,
I am a chemistry secondary school student. For my graduation project, I am analyzing lithium in lithium batteries aswell as lithium grease. I need to prove the presence of lithium in both and I need to find their concentration (mass percentage) using volumetric titration, spectrophotometric analysis and flame fotometric analysis. I am struggling on getting to a solution of lithium ions. The battery isn't going to be a big issue, all I need to do is figure out how to open the damn thing and dissolve the foil in water. The grease on the other hand is giving me some problems. The one I am analyzing is said to be based on a salt called lithium 12-hydroxy srearate. I understand that's a lithium salt of a fatty acid with an -OH group attached. I have so far only tried dissolving the grease in concentrated H2SO4 at a slightly elevated temperature (I'm guessing around 50-70°C) and as it's dissolving, it turns black. Afterwards, I dillute it with quite a bit of water and filter it through a filtering paper (I believe I used black grade, whatever that means). I found some info online that said I can percipitate lithium in the form of LiHCO3/Li2CO3. I added a bunch of NaHCO3 to first neutralize the acid and then hopefully react with the lithium ions. What I didn't know was that it had to be at 100°C for the reaction to happen, so I didn't get any percipitate and after that my time that day ran out. I only have one more chance to practice my project so I need to come up with a good way to turn that grease into a water solution of Li+ ions. If anyone could help at all, please do so. Thank you very much.

[Hunter2]

I would convert the lithium stearate to lime soap (precipitation of calcium stearate) by adding of calcium hydroxide or maybe better bariumhydroxide. This will convert to Lithium hydroxide, what can be treated further.