Lithium thermodynamics

The ketone is added to a large excess of a strong base at low temperature, usually LDA in THF at -78 °C. The more acidic and less sterically hindered proton is removed in a kineti-cally controlled reaction. The equilibrium with a thermodynamically more stable enolate (generally the one which is more stabilized by substituents) is only reached very slowly (H.O. House, 1977), and the kinetic enolates may be trapped and isolated as silyl enol ethers (J.K. Rasmussen, 1977 H.O. House, 1969). If, on the other hand, a weak acid is added to the solution, e.g. an excess of the non-ionized ketone or a non-nucleophilic alcohol such as cert-butanol, then the tautomeric enolate is preferentially formed (stabilized mostly by hyperconjugation effects). The rate of approach to equilibrium is particularly slow with lithium as the counterion and much faster with potassium or sodium. 

Lithium-ammonia reductions of most steroidal enones of interest create one or two new asymmetric centers. Such reductions are found to be highly stereoselective and this stereoselectivity constitutes the great utility of the reaction. For conjugated enones of the normal steroid series, the thermodynamically most stable products are formed predominantly and perhaps exclusively. Thus the following configurations are favored 5a, 8/ , 9a, and in certain cases 14a (see page 35). Starr has listed numerous examples illustrating these facts and Smith " and Barton have tabulated similar data. 

A study of the lithium-ammonia reduction of 14-en-16-ones would extend our understanding of the configuration favored at C-14 in metal-ammonia reductions. Although several simple 14-en-16-ones are known, their reduction by lithium and ammonia apparently has not been described in the literature. Lithium-ammonia reduction of A-nortestosterone, a compound that structurally is somewhat analogous to a 14-en-16-one, affords roughly equal amounts of the 5a- and 5 -dihydro-A-nortestosterones. " This finding was interpreted as indicating that there is little difference in thermodynamic stability between the two stereoisomeric products. 

Huffman found that treatment of cholan-12-one (65b) with lithium and ammonia for 2 hours followed by addition of propanol gives 40 % of a pinacol together with 48.5 % of 12-ols in which the ratio of 12j5 12a is 19 1. This predominance of the 12 -ol was interpreted in terms of slow formation of a dianion of type (62) followed by its equilibration to the thermodynamically most stable configuration, i.e. one which affords the 12j5-ol upon protonation. An alternative explanation is that reduction in the presence of methanol involves protonation of a ketyl such as (61) by methanol, whereas in the absence of methanol reduction proceeds via the dianion (62) which is protonated on... 

If the equilibrium were established rapidly, reduction of the free ketone as it formed would result in a substantial loss of product. Lithium enolates are more covalent in character than are those of sodium and potassium and consequently are the least basic of the group. This lower thermodynamic basicity appears to be paralleled by a lower kinetic basicity several workers have shown that lithium enolates are weaker bases in the kinetic sense than are those of sodium and potassium." As noted earlier, conjugated enones... 

In section V-A it has been pointed out that catalytic reduction of conjugated enones is usually a good method for the preparation of p- or y-labeled ketones. To overcome certain stereochemical problems, however, it is occasionally necessary to use the lithium-ammonia reduction. In this case deuteration takes place at the / -carbon and generally leads to the thermodynamically more stable product (see chapter 1). 

A useful alternate procedure which allows the generation and alkylation of the less stable enolate anion has been reported by Stork.This method takes advantage of the fact that the thermodynamically less stable enolate anion formed in the lithium ammonia reduction of a conjugated enone... 

In some metal components it is possible to form oxides and carbides, and in others, especially those with a relatively wide solid solubility range, to partition the impurity between the solid and the liquid metal to provide an equilibrium distribution of impurities around the circuit. Typical examples of how thermodynamic affinities affect corrosion processes are seen in the way oxygen affects the corrosion behaviour of stainless steels in sodium and lithium environments. In sodium systems oxygen has a pronounced effect on corrosion behaviour whereas in liquid lithium it appears to have less of an effect compared with other impurities such as C and Nj. According to Casteels Li can also penetrate the surface of steels, react with interstitials to form low density compounds which then deform the surface by bulging. For further details see non-metal transfer. 

Lithium metal is chemically very active and reacts thermodynamically with any organic electrolyte. However, in practice, lithium metal can be dissolved and deposited electrochemically in some organic electrolytes [5]. It is generally believed that a protective film is formed on the lithium anode which prevents further reaction [6, 7]. This film strongly affects the lithium cycling efficiency. 

A series of experiments have been undertaken to evaluate the relevant thermodynamic properties of a number of binary lithium alloy systems. The early work was directed towards determination of their behavior at about 400 °C because of interest in their potential use as components in molten salt batteries operating in that general temperature range. Data for a number of binary lithium alloy systems at about 400 °C are presented in Table 1. These were mostly obtained by the use of an experimental arrangement employing the LiCl-KCl eutectic molten salt as a lithiumconducting electrolyte. 

This thermodynamically based methodology provides predictions of the lithium capacities in addition to the electrode potentials of the various three-phase equilibria under conditions of complete equilibrium. This information is included as the last column in Table 2, in terms of the number of moles of lithium per kilogram total alloy weight. 

In addition to this work on the / phase, both the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the terminal solid-solution region, which extends to about 9 atom% lithium at 423 °C, were also investigated in detail [36]. 

From a thermodynamic point of view, apart from charge density and specific charge, the redox potential of lithium insertion into/removal from the electrode materials has to be considered also. For instance, the redox potential of many Li alloys is between -0.3 and -1.0 V vs. Li/Li+, whereas it is only -0.1 V vs. 

The excess charge consumed in the first cycle is generally ascribed to SEI formation and corrosion-like reactions of Li C6[19, 66, 118-120]. Like metallic lithium and Li-rich Li alloys, lithiated graphites, and more generally lithiated carbons are thermodynamically unstable in all known electrolytes, and therefore the surfaces which are exposed to the electrolyte have to be kinetically protected by SEI films (see Chapter III, Sec.6). Neverthe-... 

According to this model, the SEI is made of ordered or disordered crystals that are thermodynamically stable with respect to lithium. The grain boundaries (parallel to the current lines) of these crystals make a significant contribution to the conduction of ions in the SEI [1, 2], It was suggested that the equivalent circuit for the SEI consists of three parallel RC circuits in series combination (Fig. 12). Later, Thevenin and Muller [29] suggested several modifications to the SEI model ... 

The first two models are irrelevant to lithium-battery systems since the PEIs are not thermodynamically stable with respect to lithium. Perchlorate (and other anions but not halides) were found to be reduced to LiCl [15, 16, 22-27]. It is commonly accepted that in lithium batteries the anode is covered by SEI which consists of thermodynamically stable anions (such as 02, S2-, halides). Recently, Aurbach and Za-ban [25] suggested an SEI which consists of five different consecutive layers. They represented this model by a series of five... 

OCV conditions, by a newly formed SEI is expected to be a slow process. The SEI is necessary in PE systems in order to prevent the entry of solvated electrons to the electrolyte and to minimize the direct reaction between the lithium anode and the electrolyte. SEI-free Li/PE batteries are not practical. The SEI cannot be a pure polymer, but must consist of thermodynamically stable inorganic reduction products of... 

All anions are thermodynamically unstable with lithium, e.g., LiAsF6 generates about 1600 kJ mol-1 heat upon reduction with lithium metal [6]. 

Unfortunately, both lithium and the lithiated carbons used as the anode in lithium ion batteries (Li C, l>x>0) are thermodynamically unstable relative to solvent molecules containing polar bonds such as C-O, C-N, or C-S, and to many anions of lithium salts, solvent or salt impurities (such as water, carbon dioxide, or nitrogen), and intentionally added traces of reactive substances (additives). 

The third aspect, the stability range of solid electrolytes, is of special concern for alkaline-ion conductors since only a few compounds show thermodynamic stability with, e.g., elemental lithium. Designing solid electrolytes by considering thermodynamic stability did lead to very interesting compounds and the discovery of promising new solid electrolytes such as the lithium nitride halides [27]. However, since solid-state reactions may proceed very slowly at low temperature, metasta-... 

---