HISTORY
1817
Discovery date
Johan August Arfvedson
Discovered by
In the early 1500s the alchemist Paracelsus noted that the bubbles given off when iron filings were added to sulfuric acid were flammable. In 1671 Robert Boyle made the same observation. Neither followed up their discovery of hydrogen, and so Henry Cavendish gets the credit. In 1766 he collected the bubbles and showed that they were different from other gases. He later showed that when hydrogen burns it forms water, thereby ending the belief that water was an element. The gas was given its name hydro-gen, meaning water-former, by Antoine Lavoisier. In 1931, Harold Urey and his colleagues at Columbia University in the US detected a second, rarer, form of hydrogen. This has twice the mass of normal hydrogen, and they named it deuterium.
FAST FACTS
None
Allotropes
1
Group
2
Period
s
Block
3
Atomic Number
Solid
State
[He]2s¹
Electronic Configuration
180.50℃
Melting point
1342℃
Boiling point
0.534
Density
6.94
Relative atomic mass
&sup7;Li
Key isotopes
USES AND PROPERTIES
Appearance
A soft, silvery metal. It has the lowest density of all metals. It reacts vigorously with water.
Uses
The most important use of lithium is in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles. Lithium is also used in some non-rechargeable batteries for things like heart pacemakers, toys and clocks.
Lithium metal is made into alloys with aluminium and magnesium, improving their strength and making them lighter. A magnesium-lithium alloy is used for armour plating. Aluminium-lithium alloys are used in aircraft, bicycle frames and high-speed trains.
Lithium oxide is used in special glasses and glass ceramics. Lithium chloride is one of the most hygroscopic materials known, and is used in air conditioning and industrial drying systems (as is lithium bromide). Lithium stearate is used as an all-purpose and high-temperature lubricant. Lithium carbonate is used in drugs to treat manic depression, although its action on the brain is still not fully understood. Lithium hydride is used as a means of storing hydrogen for use as a fuel.
Biological role
Lithium has no known biological role. It is toxic, except in very small doses.
Natural abundance
Lithium does not occur as the metal in nature, but is found combined in small amounts in nearly all igneous rocks and in the waters of many mineral springs. Spodumene, petalite, lepidolite, and amblygonite are the more important minerals containing lithium.
Most lithium is currently produced in Chile, from brines that yield lithium carbonate when treated with sodium carbonate. The metal is produced by the electrolysis of molten lithium chloride and potassium chloride.
All information is from rsc.