Lithium borate, also known as lithium tetraborate is an
inorganic compound
In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as '' inorganic chemist ...
with the formula Li
2B
4O
7. A colorless solid, lithium borate is used in making
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
es and
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
s.
Structure
Its structure consists of a polymeric borate backbone. The Li
+ centers are bound to four and five oxygen ligands. Boron centers are trigonal and tetrahedral.
![65930-ICSD](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/65930-ICSD.png)
Lithium borate can be used in the laboratory as
LB buffer LB buffer, also known as lithium borate buffer, is a buffer solution used in agarose electrophoresis, typically for the separation of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. It is made up of Lithium borate (lithium hydroxide monohydrate and boric acid). ...
for
gel electrophoresis
Gel electrophoresis is a method for separation and analysis of biomacromolecules ( DNA, RNA, proteins, etc.) and their fragments, based on their size and charge. It is used in clinical chemistry to separate proteins by charge or size (IEF ...
of
DNA and
RNA
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...
. It is also used in the borax fusion method to
vitrify
The glass–liquid transition, or glass transition, is the gradual and reversible transition in amorphous materials (or in amorphous regions within semicrystalline materials) from a hard and relatively brittle "glassy" state into a viscous or rub ...
mineral powder specimens for analysis by
WDXRF spectroscopy.
[Ron Jenkins, ''X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry, Second Edition'', J. Wiley & Sons Inc., 1999, , p 146-7.]
See also
*
LB buffer LB buffer, also known as lithium borate buffer, is a buffer solution used in agarose electrophoresis, typically for the separation of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. It is made up of Lithium borate (lithium hydroxide monohydrate and boric acid). ...
*
Lithium metaborate
Lithium metaborate is a chemical compound of lithium, boron, and oxygen with elemental formula . It is often encountered as a hydrate, , where ''n'' is usually 2 or 4. However, these formulas do not describe the actual structure of the solids. ...
(LiBO
2)
References
Borates
Lithium compounds
{{Inorganic-compound-stub