Effective Solvents for Cleaning Paraffin off Lithium: A Scientific Inquiry

[dcay]

Hi all,

I've recently encountered the problem of cleaning paraffin oil off a lithium foil. Unfortunately, I am no chemist, and thus am not too sure what will and will not react with the lithium itself (which is something I need to avoid). I had a look for possible solvents that I could use and the best bet I came up with was heptane. If anyone knows a bit more about what I could possibly use (scientific papers just brush over that part of the experiments, which makes me think it's fairly standard), that would be really great!

Thanks,
-dcay

edit: I should quickly point out that I realize that this question involves lithium metal to a certain degree, but I wasn't quite sure from the posting rules whether I would be allowed to ask this question, so please feel free to delete the thread if it is not permitted.

 

[DrDu]

Heptane sound good, a maybe cheaper alternative is petrol ether. You could also try toluene. You should never use halogenated hydrocarbons, like methylene chloride, as they tend react explosively with alkali metals.

 

[dcay]

Hi,Thanks for the quick reply, DrDu. I think I'll try petrol ester like you suggested.

Thanks,
-dcay