50 Fun Facts About Lithium

What is the chemical symbol for lithium?

Li is its symbol, and people who take lithium as a medicine have regular blood tests, since too much of it in the blood can be toxic.

Lithium follows which element in the periodic table?

Helium comes just before it, and because helium's two electrons fill the first shell, lithium's third electron has to start a new one, opening the table's second row.

The name lithium comes from the Greek word for what?

Stone was chosen, it is thought, because lithium was found in a mineral, while the similar metals already known had been traced to plants or animals.

Lithium holds which record among all metals under standard conditions?

Least dense of all metals, lithium is only about half as dense as water, so it floats even on oil.

In 2013, which new airliner was grounded worldwide after its lithium-ion batteries overheated and caught fire?

Boeing 787 jets stayed on the ground for about three months, until Boeing redesigned the battery system so any fire would be contained.

Why is lithium metal usually stored in an inert gas or coated in petroleum jelly?

It is highly reactive and flammable, and it is one of the few metals that react with nitrogen gas, the main part of air.

Lithium heads which group of the periodic table?

The alkali metals owe their name to an Arabic word usually traced to 'the ashes', since alkali was first drawn from the ashes of burnt plants.

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

The least reactive of all, lithium holds its lone outer electron closest to the nucleus, so it gives it up less easily and reacts more gently with water than sodium.

Which Samsung phone was scrapped in 2016 after units kept catching fire because of faulty lithium-ion batteries?

Galaxy Note 7 owners were first sent replacement phones meant to be safe, but some of those caught fire too, so Samsung recalled every unit and ended the model.

Long-lasting lithium-iodide batteries became the standard power source for which implanted medical device?

Pacemakers powered by these cells can keep going for around a decade, and when the battery runs down, the unit is swapped for a new one.

What colour do lithium salts give to a flame?

Bright red is the colour its compounds give a flame, but when lithium metal itself burns strongly, the flame turns a dazzling white.

In Star Trek, dilithium crystals are essential for powering what?

The warp drive depends on them in the show, but real dilithium is just two lithium atoms bonded into a molecule, observed as a gas rather than a hard crystal.

Which mission's crew had to rig a makeshift adapter so the command module's lithium hydroxide canisters fit the lunar module?

Apollo 13's crew was using the lunar module as a lifeboat after an oxygen tank exploded, and it lacked enough canisters, so they built a 'mailbox' that engineers had designed and tested on the ground.

In the late 1940s, lithium chloride was sold in the US as a substitute for which everyday product?

Table salt substitutes made with it were sold to people cutting down on sodium, but instead of protecting their health, they poisoned many users, some fatally.

In 2017, Apple admitted slowing some older iPhones whose lithium-ion batteries had aged, to prevent what?

Sudden shutdowns were the risk Apple cited, and amid the controversy it apologised and cut the price of a replacement battery to $29 for a year.

During the 1970s energy crisis, an early rechargeable lithium battery was developed at what kind of company?

An oil company, Exxon, backed the work because it feared oil would run out and wanted to branch into energy technology that didn't depend on petroleum.

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

Big Bang nucleosynthesis made it, yet old stars hold several times less lithium-7 than the theory predicts, a mismatch known as the cosmological lithium problem.

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

Red dwarf stars get hot enough inside to fuse their lithium and use it up, while most brown dwarfs never do, so a dim dwarf that still shows lithium is likely a brown dwarf.

In 1932, Cockcroft and Walton fired protons at lithium, becoming the first to do what with a particle accelerator?

Split the atom was the feat, and it came when Walton, alone at the machine, saw telltale flashes of light on a screen and called in Cockcroft and Rutherford to confirm them.

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

The deuteride is a stable solid that packs in more hydrogen than liquid fuel does, which makes it far easier to handle and to build into a weapon.

Fallout from 1954's Castle Bravo H-bomb, its yield swollen by lithium-7, sickened the crew of what?

A Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon No. 5, was dusted with fallout, and one of its 23 crew later died. Designers had expected the lithium-7 to stay inert.

Lithium demand has soared mainly because of batteries for what?

Electric cars set off a lithium rush, and prices soared in the early 2020s, then slumped amid fears of oversupply.

Lithium-ion battery pioneer John Goodenough set which Nobel Prize record when he shared the 2019 chemistry award?

Oldest-ever winner of a Nobel Prize, at 97, he was still doing research in the lab when the prize was announced.

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

Sony needed a smaller, lighter battery for its camcorders, and the rechargeable lithium-ion cells it brought to market went on to power mobile phones and laptops.

Why must spare lithium batteries fly in cabin bags rather than in checked luggage?

So crew can tackle a fire if one overheats, and after a 2025 cabin fire suspected to have started with a power bank, South Korea barred power banks from overhead bins too.

What makes a swallowed lithium coin battery so dangerous for a young child?

It can burn through tissue, since saliva lets it pass a current that makes a caustic alkali, which is why Duracell began coating some coin cells with a bitter taste.

Lithium-rich brine pumped from under South American deserts is concentrated mainly how?

Sunshine evaporates water from the brine as it sits in vast shallow pools for months, so in rainier, cooler places the process runs slower.

Which three countries form the Lithium Triangle?

Argentina, Bolivia and Chile share it, but while Chile and Argentina became major lithium exporters, Bolivia, whose deposits are harder to process, still produced little by the mid-2020s.

What is the Salar de Uyuni?

The world's largest salt flat is the crust left behind when a vast prehistoric lake on the Andean plateau dried up.

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

Mirror is what it becomes when a thin sheet of water reflects the sky, and the surface is so level that scientists use it to calibrate satellite instruments.

Near California's Salton Sea, lithium could be extracted from hot underground brine already pumped up by what?

Geothermal plants already pump up the superheated brine to make electricity, so lithium extraction could piggyback on work those plants do anyway.

Where is Greenbushes, a huge hard-rock lithium mine?

Western Australia is home to it, and the site began as a tin mine in 1888, with lithium not extracted there until the 1980s.

Boosters of the battery metal lithium often call it by which nickname?

White gold, they say, and in Zimbabwe a lithium rush saw villagers dig their land with picks and shovels, before many were evicted as bigger, foreign-backed miners moved in.

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

Afghanistan got the label in a 2010 Pentagon memo, but tapping minerals valued at nearly $1 trillion would need far better security and infrastructure than the country had.

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

230 billion tonnes, far more than on land, but it is spread so thinly among other salts that seawater lithium was still largely untapped in 2026.

Doctors in the 1800s gave lithium salts for gout because lithium dissolved what in lab tests?

Uric acid was the target, since its crystals cause gout, and lithia waters and lithium tablets were soon sold as remedies for a range of ills blamed on it.

On which animals did Australian psychiatrist John Cade first notice lithium's calming effect?

Guinea pigs given lithium grew calm, and before trying it on patients, Cade took it himself to check that it was safe.

Which condition is lithium chiefly used to treat?

Bipolar disorder is its main use, and long-term lithium treatment is also linked to a markedly lower risk of suicide in people with mood disorders.

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

It cannot be patented, so drug firms have had little reason to promote it, and as newer, heavily marketed mood drugs arrived, lithium prescribing fell.

Places whose drinking water naturally holds more trace lithium have been linked with lower rates of what?

Dementia rates tended to be lower in such places, even at levels far below a medicinal dose, though as of 2024 most studies could show only a link, not cause.

Taking lithium early in pregnancy has been linked with a raised risk of birth defects in which organ?

Heart defects are the main worry, but the added risk is small and rises with dose, so some patients stay on lithium, since stopping can bring on a relapse.

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?

Nevermind includes it, and Cobain described the song as a fictional tale of a man who turns to religion after the death of his girlfriend.

Soaps made from lithium are widely used to thicken which product?

Grease thickened with lithium soap stands up well to heat and water, which makes it a handy all-purpose lubricant for machines.

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

Carbon dioxide from the crew's breath is soaked up, but the chemical can't be recharged once spent, so NASA later replaced some lithium hydroxide canisters with reusable ones.

A lithium mineral found in Serbia almost exactly matched the formula of which fictional substance?

Kryptonite's case in Superman Returns bore nearly the same chemical name, but the real mineral, jadarite, is white rather than green, and it doesn't glow.

Lithium mining in the Atacama salt flat has raised concerns for which birds that feed in its lagoons?

Flamingos, and a 2022 study found that in the Atacama, more lithium mining went along with fewer birds of two of the three flamingo species there.

After lithium-6 was extracted for nuclear weapons, leftover lithium sold commercially could differ from natural lithium in what?

Atomic weight, because removing some of the lighter isotope left the rest heavier, so the official figure for lithium carries a warning that samples may differ.

Alloys of aluminium and lithium are mainly of interest to which industry?

Aerospace makers use them to save weight, and SpaceX built the tank walls of its Falcon 9 rocket from such an alloy.

The first glass-ceramic, made from a lithium-containing glass, was discovered by accident when what went wrong?

A furnace overheated, and when the hot plate slipped from the scientist's tongs, it hit the floor without breaking, a find that led to CorningWare cookware.