Lithium salts are extracted from the water in mineral springs, brine pools and brine deposits.
The metal is produced through electrolysis from a mixture of fused 55% lithium chloride and 45% potassium chloride.
Lithium is highly reactive and flammable. It is stored in mineral oil, petroleum jelly.
Because of its high reactivity, lithium never occurs freely in nature, and instead, only appears in compounds, which are usually ionic.
Lithium-6 deuteride serves as a fusion fuel in staged thermonuclear weapons.
Industrial applications, including heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium grease lubricants, flux additives for iron, steel and aluminium production, lithium batteries and lithium-ion batteries.
Soft enough to be cut with a knife. When cut, it possesses a silvery-white color that quickly changes to gray due to oxidation into lithium oxide.
It has one of the lowest melting points among all metals (180°), it has the highest melting and boiling points of the alkali metal
It is the least dense of all elements that are solid at room temperature, the next lightest solid element (potassium) being more than 60% denser.
Lithium can float on the lightest hydrocarbon oils and is one only three metals that can float on water, the other two being sodium and potassium.
Lithium has a mass specific heat capacity of 3.58 kilojoules per kilogram-kelvin, the highest of all solids. Because of this, lithium metal is often used in coolants for heat transfer applications.
Lithium’s co-efficient of thermal expansion is twice that of aluminium and almost four times that of iron.
The only metal which reacts with nitrogen under normal conditions.
