Element · Li

Lithium

The lightest metal, and the element that made a rechargeable battery worth carrying.

Lithium is soft enough to cut with a knife and light enough to float on water, which it also reacts with. Its significance is electrochemical: lithium gives up its outer electron more readily than almost anything else, and it is very light, so a battery built around it stores more energy per kilogram than one built around any heavier metal.

That single fact is why portable electronics and electric vehicles took the shape they did. The constraint on both is not the idea but the supply of this element.

Extraction

From two very different sources: hard-rock spodumene ore, mined conventionally, and brine, pumped from beneath salt flats and concentrated by solar evaporation over months. The brine route is cheaper and far slower to scale, which is why lithium supply responds to demand with a lag measured in years.

Uses

Lithium's dominant use is the rechargeable battery, where it earns its place by being the lightest metal — energy density per unit mass is the whole argument for it in a phone or a car.

Its older uses persist quietly. Lithium carbonate is a long-established treatment for bipolar disorder, one of the few drugs that is simply an element's salt. Lithium compounds also lower the melting point of glass and ceramic batches, which is why cookware that survives thermal shock often contains it.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is used as

Battery electrodes — application · the defining material of the rechargeable cell

is produced by

Molten salt electrolysis — process · from molten lithium chloride, after concentration from brine or spodumene
Brine evaporation — process · the majority of world supply, concentrated over a year or more in ponds on the Andean salars from a few hundred parts per million to a few per cent

is extracted from

Spodumene — mineral · the principal hard-rock source, against brine — the two routes differ in cost, speed and carbon rather than in product Wikidata
Lepidolite — mineral · the second lithium ore after spodumene, less used because its fluorine complicates processing

is an alternative to

Sodium — element · in batteries: sodium-ion cells store less energy for their mass and are made from an element nobody has to secure, which suits stationary storage and does not suit a phone

is used in

Lithium-ion cell — object · the ion that shuttles, and the only part of the cell the name mentions
Smartphone — object · the battery, and the only part of the phone that is consumed rather than used

is produced at

Salar de Atacama — place · concentrated by solar evaporation over a year or more, which is the cheapest route there is and available in very few places

is found in

Kunzite — mineral variety · from the spodumene, which is the principal hard-rock lithium ore
Lithium iron phosphate — compound · the ion that does the work, and the only element this cathode shares with the nickel ones
NMC cathode — compound · the working ion
Lithium cobalt oxide — compound · the working ion, and the material Goodenough showed could be taken out and put back at four volts
Lepidolite — mineral · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it
Spodumene — mineral Wikidata

is a source for

Lithium iron phosphate — compound · as lithium carbonate, which is the traded chemical rather than the metal — from Atacama brine or from Australian spodumene

Sources

Material World
Our own writing
Wikidata
Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
PubChem
US National Library of Medicine · Mixed — aggregated third-party content, rights retained by depositors
NIST — National Institute of Standards and Technology
United States Department of Commerce · US Government work — public information, credit requested

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Lithium back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

Lithium → is produced by (the majority of world supply, concentrated over a year or more in ponds on the Andean salars from a few hundred parts per million to a few per cent) → Brine evaporation → takes as input (and the pond sequence is run so that the less soluble salts crystallise out first, leaving the sodium chloride to be harvested on its own) → Salt → is sourced from (mined as rock salt from bedded deposits, or dissolved in place and pumped up as brine — which is what the chemical industry wants anyway) → Evaporite → is sourced from (what is left when a body of seawater evaporates faster than it is replenished — the salts come out in order of solubility, which is why the sequence is readable) → Seawater → is composed of (about 96.5 per cent by mass — seawater is 3.5 per cent dissolved solids and the rest of it is this) → Water
Lithium → is produced by (from molten lithium chloride, after concentration from brine or spodumene) → Molten salt electrolysis → takes as input (after concentration, as one of the two routes to lithium chloride) → Lepidolite
Lithium → is extracted from (the principal hard-rock source, against brine — the two routes differ in cost, speed and carbon rather than in product) → Spodumene
Lithium → is extracted from (the second lithium ore after spodumene, less used because its fluorine complicates processing) → Lepidolite
Lithium → is produced by (the majority of world supply, concentrated over a year or more in ponds on the Andean salars from a few hundred parts per million to a few per cent) → Brine evaporation → takes as input (the feedstock for solar salt and, in the salars, for the far stronger brines that lithium comes from) → Seawater → is composed of (about 96.5 per cent by mass — seawater is 3.5 per cent dissolved solids and the rest of it is this) → Water
Lithium → is produced by (the majority of world supply, concentrated over a year or more in ponds on the Andean salars from a few hundred parts per million to a few per cent) → Brine evaporation → takes as input (and the pond sequence is run so that the less soluble salts crystallise out first, leaving the sodium chloride to be harvested on its own) → Salt → is sourced from (by solar evaporation, which needs a dry sunny coast and is the cheapest route there is) → Seawater → is composed of (about 96.5 per cent by mass — seawater is 3.5 per cent dissolved solids and the rest of it is this) → Water

These are the most distinct paths back. Lithium can be traced through others besides.

Downstream — what it becomes

Lithium → is a source for (as lithium carbonate, which is the traded chemical rather than the metal — from Atacama brine or from Australian spodumene) → Lithium iron phosphate → is used in (in more than half of world cell production, and in almost all stationary storage — the cathode chosen where mass does not bind and price and fire risk do) → Lithium-ion cell → is used in (and portable computing came first by two decades) → Electronics manufacture → is associated with (and the supply chain it produced is the deepest and most concentrated in the world economy) → The semiconductor era complete chain
Lithium → is used in (the ion that shuttles, and the only part of the cell the name mentions) → Lithium-ion cell → is used in (and portable computing came first by two decades) → Electronics manufacture → is associated with (and the supply chain it produced is the deepest and most concentrated in the world economy) → The semiconductor era complete chain
Lithium → is used in (the battery, and the only part of the phone that is consumed rather than used) → Smartphone → is used in (and it is where four separate raw-material arguments meet — the 3TG conflict minerals, cobalt, the rare earths, and everything too dispersed to recover) → Electronics manufacture → is associated with (and the supply chain it produced is the deepest and most concentrated in the world economy) → The semiconductor era complete chain
Lithium → is used as (the defining material of the rechargeable cell) → Battery electrodes
Lithium → is produced at (concentrated by solar evaporation over a year or more, which is the cheapest route there is and available in very few places) → Salar de Atacama
Lithium → is used in (the battery, and the only part of the phone that is consumed rather than used) → Smartphone → is associated with (the object the whole period arrives at, and the one that put roughly sixty elements into a pocket) → The semiconductor era complete chain

These are the most distinct paths onward. Lithium ends up in others besides.