50 Fun Facts About Lithium

What is the chemical symbol for lithium?

Its atomic number is 3.

What is lithium's atomic number?

Only hydrogen and helium are lighter.

The name lithium comes from the Greek word for what?

Berzelius chose it because the element was found in a solid mineral, unlike potassium (plant ash) or sodium (animal blood).

Lithium holds which record among all metals under standard conditions?

It is also the least dense solid element.

Lithium is one of only three metals that can float on water. What are the other two?

It can even float on the lightest hydrocarbon oils.

Why must lithium be stored in a vacuum, inert gas or a liquid like mineral oil?

In air it quickly tarnishes to dull grey and then black.

Which group of the periodic table is nicknamed the lithium family?

Sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and francium are its siblings.

Where does lithium rank for reactivity within its own periodic-table group?

Its single valence electron sits close to the nucleus.

What is lithium's melting point, the highest of any alkali metal?

Its boiling point of 1,342 °C is also the highest in the group.

Lithium has the highest value of which property among all solids, making it useful in coolants?

It is 3.58 kilojoules per kilogram-kelvin.

What colour do lithium salts give to a flame?

Christian Gmelin first observed the effect in 1818; the compounds are used in red fireworks.

Who detected the new element lithium in 1817 while analysing petalite ore in Berzelius's laboratory?

He later found the same element in spodumene and lepidolite but could not isolate it.

On which Swedish island was petalite, the mineral in which lithium was found, discovered in 1800?

The discoverer was Brazilian chemist and statesman José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva.

Who first isolated pure lithium in 1821, by electrolysis of lithium oxide?

He used the same method Davy had employed to isolate potassium and sodium.

Which German company began commercial lithium production in 1923?

It electrolysed a molten mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride.

How many stable isotopes does lithium have?

Their nuclei have among the lowest binding energies per nucleon of any stable nuclide.

Lithium-7 was created in which process very early in the universe's history?

Measured amounts don't match the model, an issue called the cosmological lithium problem.

Astronomers use a 'lithium test' to tell brown dwarfs apart from what?

Lithium survives in cooler brown dwarfs but is destroyed in hotter red dwarfs.

Which two physicists produced the first fully human-made nuclear reaction in 1932, bombarding lithium with protons?

The lithium-7 became beryllium-8, which instantly split into two alpha particles: 'splitting the atom'.

Which compound of element 3 serves as fusion fuel in staged thermonuclear weapons?

An unexpected reaction in it caused the runaway yield of a famous 1954 test.

Which nuclear test's runaway yield came from a poorly understood lithium-7 reaction producing tritium?

Both lithium-6 and lithium-7 produce tritium when bombarded by neutrons.

Roughly what share of the world's lithium went into lithium-ion batteries in 2026?

Ceramics and glass, the second-largest use, take about 4 percent.

Which three scientists shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the lithium-ion battery?

Yoshino's 1985 prototype used a carbon anode instead of lithium metal.

Which company first commercialised the lithium-ion battery, in 1991?

The team was led by Yoshio Nishi with Asahi Kasei.

Which cathode material did John Goodenough introduce in 1980?

Whittingham's earlier titanium disulfide design was never commercialised because of safety problems.

In what year did lithium-ion batteries become the dominant use of lithium?

Before that, glass and aluminium smelting dominated the market.

Which country was estimated in 2020 to have the largest lithium reserves?

Australia had the highest annual production.

Which three countries form the Lithium Triangle?

Its vertices are the salt flats of Uyuni, Atacama and Hombre Muerto.

What is the Salar de Uyuni?

It covers about 10,582 square kilometres of Bolivia at 3,656 metres altitude.

After rain, the Salar de Uyuni becomes the world's largest what?

The reflection stretches 129 kilometres across.

Which salt flat's brine has the highest lithium concentration of any in the world?

Its core holds 0.15 percent lithium by weight.

Where is Greenbushes, the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine?

It produces about 1.95 million tonnes of spodumene a year.

Which two minerals are the most commercially viable lithium ores?

Lithium concentrates in granitic pegmatites.

Which country did the US Department of Defense dub a potential 'Saudi Arabia of lithium'?

The estimate rested largely on old Soviet-era data from dry salt lakes.

Roughly how much lithium is dissolved in the world's oceans?

It exists at only 0.14 to 0.25 parts per million.

Which Australian psychiatrist reintroduced lithium to treat mania in 1949?

His paper was titled Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement.

On which animals did the Australian psychiatrist notice lithium's calming effect in 1949?

He had been injecting them with urine from mentally ill patients.

Which condition is lithium chiefly used to treat?

Lithium carbonate is on the WHO's List of Essential Medicines.

Why was lithium developed as a medicine by academia rather than drug companies?

Danish researcher Mogens Schou continued Cade's work in the 1950s.

In what year did the US FDA approve lithium for its primary psychiatric use?

Any other use remains off-label.

Which heart defect risk is raised in babies whose mothers take lithium in the first trimester?

Too much lithium in anyone can cause lithium toxicity.

Which soft drink originally claimed to contain lithium citrate?

The government forced health claims off the label in 1936 and the name shortened in 1937.

Which Nirvana album features the song Lithium?

Cobain said it described a man who turned to religion to keep himself from suicide.

What was lithium's first major industrial application, in the World War II era?

Lithium soaps have a higher melting point than other alkali soaps.

Aboard spacecraft and submarines, lithium hydroxide is used to remove which gas from the air?

It is preferred over other alkaline hydroxides for its low weight.

The Mark 50 torpedo is powered by spraying which gas over a block of solid lithium?

The heat makes steam that drives the torpedo in a closed Rankine cycle.

Which similarly sized ion does the lithium ion compete with in the body?

It also competes with sodium, which sits directly below it in the periodic table.

How large was the US stockpile of lithium hydroxide when Cold War production ended?

It was depleted in lithium-6 by 75 percent, enough to skew measured atomic weights.

Roughly where does lithium rank among the elements in the Earth's crust by abundance?

It averages about 20 milligrams per kilogram of crust.

Which plant family, including potatoes and tomatoes, bioaccumulates lithium up to 30 ppm?

Corn grains, by contrast, can hold as little as 0.05 ppb.