Lithium aluminate (), also called lithium aluminium oxide, is an inorganic chemical compound, an aluminate of lithium. In microelectronics, lithium aluminate is considered as a lattice matching substrate for gallium nitride. In nuclear technology, lithium aluminate is of interest as a solid tritium breeder material, for preparing tritium fuel for nuclear fusion. Lithium aluminate is a layered double hydroxide (LDH) with a crystal structure resembling that of hydrotalcite. Lithium aluminate solubility at high pH (12.5 – 13.5) is much lower than that of aluminium oxides. In the conditioning of low- and intermediate level radioactive waste (LILW), lithium nitrate is sometimes used as additive to cement to minimise aluminium corrosion at high pH and subsequent hydrogen production. Indeed, upon addition of lithium nitrate to cement, a passive layer of · 5 is formed onto the surface of metallic aluminium waste immobilised in mortar. The lithium aluminate layer is insoluble in cement pore water and protects the underlying aluminium oxide covering the metallic aluminium from dissolution at high pH. It is also a pore filler. This hinders the aluminium oxidation by the protons of water and reduces the hydrogen evolution rate by a factor of 10. Lithium aluminate also finds its use as an inert electrolyte support material in molten carbonate fuel cells, where the electrolyte may be a mixture of lithium carbonate, potassium carbonate, and sodium carbonate. History In 1906 Weyberg described his newly synthesized compound, lithium hydrogen aluminate. This was the first known synthesis of this unique compound. He asserted that this new compound had the corresponding chemical formula: In 1915 Allen and Rogers asserted that an insoluble aluminate of lithium is formed when aluminum is dissolved in a solution of lithium hydroxide. This air-dried substance had an atomic ratio of 2Li:5Al and the chemical formula: In 1929 Prociv recreated Allen and Rogers experiment and through a series of conductometric measurements on the saturated solution of the substance concluded that lithium and aluminum were present in the ratio of 0.8Li:2Al, which, he says, is an atomic ratio of approximately 1Li:2Al. According to him lithium aluminate may also be precipitated by the addition of a solution of lithium hydroxide to a solution of aluminum salt or by adding a solution of lithium salt to a solution of an alkali aluminate. Thus there was disagreement between Allen/Rogers and Prociv as to the composition of lithium aluminate. This may have been attributed to