Talk:Lithium/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

GSK

"the effect of lithium carbonate on patients remained a mystery until Dr. Klein and his colleagues’ at the University of Pennsylvania discovered in 2006 that lithium, a natural salt, deactivated the GSK-3B enzyme."

Is this (above) a description of the 1996 article by Klein and Melton? --JWSchmidt 21:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Photo problem; precautions

lithium pellets??

This picture does not agree with the precautions text... I suspect the white stuff in the plastic box is not lithium but a lithium compound. 213.51.209.230 12:56, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suspect this image also. Lithium tarnishes BLACK in air, so even if it started out as metal, it wouldn't end up white unless perhaps in extremely humid conditions. I've never seen lithium metal coated with white residue. We'd like the provinance of this photo, please! Saying it just came from the government isn't enough. Steve 16:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

There are now 4 articles that come under the general title of lithium. Is it time to set up a disambiguation page? I would be happy to set it up, but I am unsure of how. Leave the instructions on my talk page and I will take care of it. Sensation002 02:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One already exists at Lithium (disambiguation) and is linked from the top of this article. --mav 15:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Australia vs Argentina

In "Market trend" section, should "Australia" be changed to "Argentina"? other parts of this article say that Argentina is the 2nd largest producer. --Sunfish 03:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's the current passage:

Market trend ... Between 2002 and 2005, lithium minerals production rose by 7% per year to reach 18,800 tonnes Li. Chile and Australia account for over 60% of total output.

Probable vandalism details

Perhaps a chemist will review the text of the 'graph below, just in case (hmm, actually, the crimson is not incandescance but a slow flame, right? And is this a safety issue?), but the only edit ever by 66.235.7.213 (as of 12 hours afterward) was adding the question marks to the following:

== Notable Characteristics == ??????????????????????????wahw???

Lithium is the lightest metal and has a density that is only half that of water. Like all alkali metals, Lithium reacts easily in water and does not occur freely in nature due to its activity, nevertheless it is still less reactive than the chemically similar sodium. When placed over a flame, this metal gives off a striking crimson color but when it burns strongly, the flame becomes a brilliant white. This is also an univalent element. --Jerzy 00:36, 2003 Nov 24 (UTC)

Question: Is lithium one of the more reactive metals to H2O?? If it is someone post back.

From my memory of high school chemistry, all the group I metals are highly reactive with water. Lithium reacts similarly to sodium with water.Nbc7 05:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, SORT of similar. In cold water, there's a clear difference, though lithium metal reacts briskly, swims about in water making hydrogen, and does produce really caustic solution of lithium hydroxide, LiOH. What lithium does not do, is react fast enough in multi-gram quantities in cold water, to blow up. Sodium will blow up, depending on quantity. Also, lithium doesn't ball up and melt in the water reaction (at least not on small scales), mainly due to its higher melting POINT, but also due to it's slower reaction. So all in all, it's WAY less dangerous to put lithium in water than to put sodium in water. Not that we'd like to emphasize this fact too much, but it's the truth. Yes, I speak from direct experience. SBHarris 06:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No biological role?

I believe Li+ plays a very important, yet poorly understood role in neurotransmission. I'd say that's important.

Anyone know where to look?

ehm.. Why do you believe so ? Actually, lithium is not present in human body even if Li+ helps to stabilize bipolar disorders only because it plays the role of Na+ Emilio 19:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that, yes, Lithium is important biologically. It absolutely is present in the human body. It's been suggested that humans need it in their diet. There should be a section about this. This is probably the best link I've found: http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/21/1/14 Mrienstra 21:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Lithium is essential and is found in all life: Quote "The available experimental evidence now appears to be sufficient to accept lithium as essential; a provisional RDA for a 70 kg adult of 1,000 microg/day is suggested."

References

Uthium

A web search for "uthium", for example this on Google, will throw up many hits. On closer examination, it will be seen that the vast majority of these hits are in web documents created by optical character recognition and that the word should be "Lithium" but the "Li" have been recognised as "U". - RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 16:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! Alas, if this is your own observation and hypothesis (which I think very likely correct), it's still original and we can't use it. Would make a good addition to one of the demi-trivia sections, like "lithium references in pop-culture." SBHarris 22:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Echeat.com?!

One of your references is www.echeat.com?! Are you nuts?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by It Is Me Here (talk • contribs) 12:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Lithium Price is messed up

The price of lithium is way tooooooo high think it should be world $10 per 20lbs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.201.42.112 (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

We probably should not even be discussing prices at all in these element articles, since they fluctuate, are supplier dependent, and very, very bulk and especially purity dependent. So much so that there really isn't any even ballpark answer. SBHarris 23:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

~~What about the boiling and melting point? In my opinion those are very important things!~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.76.114 (talk) 00:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Lithium pricing and geological availability information is very important and many wikipedia users will want to have that information. At least some historic price chart, or some link to places people can follow to find out current price quote will be helpful. I am unable to provide that information. Can some one in the know help improve it? Silverbach (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Lithium spin

In the CRC Handbook data The Spin of 1H2 is Given as +1, 2He4 is 0, 3Li6 is +1, and 3Li7 is -3/2, and 4Be8 is 0. Does anyone know how this makes sense? WFPMWFPM (talk) 02:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

References

Three of the references listed at the bottom are red-linked. Can someone update the refs or find new ones? spider1224 17:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC) --98.235.122.228 (talk)luis —Preceding undated comment was added at 21:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC).

There are no articles for the journals but the refs are OK.--Stone (talk) 06:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Lithium needs

What would we do if lithium runs out we'll die! So please do not waste it and as for the war in Iraq I think since they killed tons of people that when Iraqies buy lithium that should pay alot extra. Offensiveandconfusing 00:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I heard on the BBC that Bolivia has the most resources of this future important element (for rechargeable batteries, etc). Is this true? 212.43.22.1 (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Owen Price

Cryogenic lithium

I removed this :

The proportion of the different crystalline states is temperature-dependent. On cryogenic cooling lithium at atmospheric pressure, the crystalline state which first predominates is fcc, followed by bcc, followed by 9R hex at the coldest temperatures. On heating solid lithium from deep cryogenic temperatures, the property known as heat of reversion will cause a crystalline state transition from 9R hex to bcc, which absorbs heat and causes cooling. In warming at cryogenic temperatures, there is thus a region of negative specific heat in lithium crystals, due to this state change. "ref" some paper by DOUGLAS L. MARTIN circa 1956 "/ref"

Firstly would this be better suited to an article on or relating to heat of reversion, with a link from lithium.

Secondly lithium has many properties - why is this notable.

Thridly referenced as "some paper by DOUGLAS L. MARTIN circa 1956" - is this a joke? I found http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v1/i12/p447_1 but cant read it.

Also is "heat of reversion" a well used term - there are terms associated with phase changes - as described - but I have not heard "reversion heat" - also most phase changes on warming require heat - eg melting, boiling etc - why is this so special that it must be mentioned?

Also the article seemed to be saying that hexagonal was the same as rhombohedral as it linked from rhombohedral to hexangonal in a wiki link. I changed this. Can someone check what remains in the properties section please.77.86.67.245 (talk) 03:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Also

Also can someone confirm of deny the use of cadmium lithium alloys in high strength aircraft parts - this seems the most unlikely thing as the references I can find seem to say that the alloys are very low melting and neither metal is noted for its strength..77.86.67.245 (talk) 04:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The alloys are Aluminium bassed and contain lithium, cadmium and copper. If this sentence is not 100% clear I will change it.--Stone (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes please - any online references as well - I've looked and looked - all I can find is "lithium cadmium alloys for uranium extraction" and similar.FengRail (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

RTC added cadmium 18:39, 19 December 2002 and I could only find something about the aluminium alloys containing copper lithium zirconium and silver [[1]] so we should get rid of the cadmium I think.--Stone (talk) 20:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Also can someone check "According to theory, lithium was one of the very few elements synthesized in the Big Bang; its abundance is now vastly less than that predicted by theory" is this still true ie has the theories or measurements changed - should it read something like "the abundance of lithium has vastly decreased from the amount predicted to be present after the big bang" or something - I really don't know I'm not an astrophysicist.77.86.67.245 (talk) 05:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There is less Li than you'd think from it being #3 after H and He (which make up most of the universe). In general, lighter elements are more common. Still, there isn't even as much Li as has been calculated from it being formed in the Big Bang, which suggests that it's burned in stars faster than it can be made there. SBHarris 06:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I'm asking - I'm asking whether the current state of knowledge gives a discrepancy between theory and measurements - its clear that there was a descrepancy in the past. But some of the new papers suggest that that problem has been solved - though I can't be certain.77.86.67.245 (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis Enters the Precision Era
• Lithium-6 : Evolution from Big Bang to Present
• Primordial Lithium Abundance in Catalyzed Big Bang Nucleosynthesis]
• Big bang nucleosynthesis - Theories and observations
• Primordial Lithium and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

--Stone (talk) 21:00, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph on Human Biology of Lithium Removed

I have removed this paragraph from the end of the "Basic Features" section:

"In humans lithium compounds apparently play no natural biological role, and are considered to be slightly toxic. Humans aside, lithium appears to be an essential trace element for goats, and possibly rats. When used as a drug, blood concentrations of Li+ must be carefully monitored."

Because it seems to directly contradict this information in the Lithium pharmacology article:

"Lithium is widely distributed in the central nervous system and interacts with a number of neurotransmitters and receptors, decreasing noradrenaline release and increasing serotonin synthesis."

And because it is internally contradictory -- "slightly toxic" vs. "must be carefully monitored".

Something accurate on human biology and medications should be written to replace it.

---

Oh, I changed my mind! The pharmacology article is probably referring to the action of medical lithium after introduction to the body. I have restored the paragraph to this article.

But I am leaving this Talk section here for two issue to be looked into. Is that accurate about humans/goats/rats (seems bizarre a basic element could be part of only some mammalians' biology), and how toxic is the stuff?

Lithium Carbonate Extended release 300 mgs is my current perscription, check it out on a canadian drug site. Dj_cereal_killer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.132.67.1 (talk) 18:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Alarmist "Peak Lithium" paragraph removed

The cited source does not qualify as reliable by Wikipedia guidelines. Meridian Research International is a one-man operation founded by William Tahil, the author of the report. I can find no indication of his qualifications, and his report cites no sources. At least one geologist has called his reports on peak lithium alarmist and ludicrous: [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Julesa (talk • contribs) 21:20, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This kind of one-guy's opinion POV-pushing thing in a very general article like this, is the very kind of thing which is damaging for an encyclopedia, which should carry only generally agreed-on facts (of which there are plenty on lithium!). We rely on skeptical editors to find stuff like this eventually, but it stays too long as is, if it sounds even halfway reasonable. Anyhow, good job. SBHarris 09:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense sentence

In the Properties section it reads, "Like other alkali metals, lithium has a single weakly held valence electron which it will readily lose to form a cation (low ionisation energy); also indicated by the element's low electronegativity."

This doesn't make sense grammatically. The part saying "Low ionisation energy" is insterted as if it's a definition for "cation." I can't tell what it's doing there; it needs a separate sentence. "also indicated by the element's low electronegativity" also doesn't relate grammatically to the sentence it's attached to. There need either to be three separate sentences, or at least two, perhaps with the third part joined by some needed explanation. I'll wait for someone who understands all these subjects properly to straighten this mess out, but if that doesn't happen I'll just chop everything out after "cation." Cheers. --Preston McConkie ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• I changed my mind. I excised the nonsensical parts of the sentence; having documented its original form here, those bits can be re-added to the section by someone who understands them. --Preston McConkie ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:47, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Moar science

I added information about some other sources of lithium (which are important in meteorites): early solar system ⁷Be and ¹⁰Be decay, carbon star formation (maybe seen in presolar SiCs?), cosmic rays (makes both ⁶Li and ⁷Li, and solar wind (⁶Li is preferred fusion fuel). O' course most is Big bang related. 72.207.248.117 (talk) 00:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Lithium production by neutron capture in stars?

?? Doesn't most Lithium come from the same neutron-capture process that gives rise to Beryllium and Boron? --Anon

No, these three elements are mostly NOT produced by neutron capture in stars. The reason is that what would capturing the neutrons? H-3 has hardly any cross section for neutron capture, and He-4 is even worse (as all nuclides with A=5 are very unstable). So there's no place for a neutron capture process to produce Li, Be, and B to begin. Unless it all happens incredibly fast, anything made breaks down too fast for a new neutron to be captured first. That's why the big bang can do it, but supernovae can't. By and large, Li, Be, and B no produced in the big bang are thought to be produced by cosmic ray spallation (see nucleogenesis). SBHarris 05:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

name?

Why is it called "lithium"?

I'm just editing your comment to reply: It is called that b/c Berzelius (Arfvedson's partner) named it after the Greek word lithos (which means stone). The reason for this is b/c it is one of the few Alkali metals to have been discovered in a stone rather than liquid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.18.3.237 (talk) 23:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Remove Afghanistan from Lithium table?

I realize that large reserves of lithium have been identified, but is it really necessary to add Afghanistan to the table of lithium mine production and reserves? There is only speculation available as to how much lithium is actually in reserve, which is not listed on the table, and there currently no lithium mining operations in place. I argue, then, that Afghanistan currently has no place on the table of lithium mines and reserves. However, I suggest that it instead be mentioned in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.33.212 (talk) 03:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Lithium in Hale telescope mirror

I have added a "citation needed" flag to the statement that "Lithium is sometimes used in glasses and ceramics including the glass for the 200-inch (5.08 m) telescope at Mt. Palomar." The article on the Hale telescope claims that the mirror was made of Pyrex glass cast by Corning, and the article on Pyrex does not mention lithium or any of its compounds as a component of Pyrex. Maybe the Hale telescope mirror was a special case with an unusual composition because of its size, but I've not been able to turn up any reference to this with a reasonable amount of searching. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piperh (talk • contribs) 17:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The fact is copied from the CRC Handbook and should be true, but might be obsolete. Materialscientist (talk) 02:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not trust the CRC book with those facts after I had was able to prove them wrong in the case that scandium is the blue color in sapphires.--Stone (talk) 05:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

They might be wrong on science (e.g. the cause of blue color in sapphires was speculated and they picked that up), and obsolete. I think there is some truth that Li was used in that telescope, but I'm not sure it was in the mirror, and removed that bit. I added a ref on that (and will add a few more in other parts shortly - the article should be in a better shape). Materialscientist (talk) 05:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Driveby note from GAN

I'd suggest removing the article from GAN for now. It needs a thorough copyedit for clarity and flow. Some examples:

• Lead: "The nuclei of lithium are not very stable as the two stable lithium isotopes found in nature have among the lowest binding energies per nucleon of all stable nuclides." - ?! ok, I know what you meant to say ... after reading three or four times. How unstable is "not very stable" and why are two isotopes "stable" if they are "not very" ... Also: nuclei, nuclides, binding energy, nucleon, isotope in this sentence were not linked. This is in contrast to seas of blue in two other paragraphs of the lead.
• "Trace amounts of lithium are present in the oceans and in some organisms, though the element serves no apparent vital biological function in humans." - what's "though" doing here? What's the connection between two statements? If some biological functions are vital, which biological functions are not vital? Who are "some organisms"?
• Beginning of Atomic and physical: "Because of this, it is a good conductor of both heat and electricity. Because of it, it is also highly reactive, though the least reactive of the alkali metals due to the proximity of its valence electron to its nucleus." Notice two Because of...? The bit on "the least reactive" appears counterintuitive (the lead already declared lithium "highly reactive and flammable"), right now it confuses the reader.
• Beginning of Chemistry and compounds: "Lithium metal reacts with water easily." - Lithium is metal, is it not?

  metal as opposed to salts. Nergaal (talk) 18:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• History: "The stockpiled lithium was depleted in lithium-6 by 75%." ??! 75% from a baseline of 7.5% or from "as low as 3.75% in natural samples". Don't force readers to guess what you wanted to say!

Good luck, East of Borschov 12:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I quickfixed some obvious problems, and think the nomination can be mended in a short time, but agree that a proper copyedit would be appropriate. Materialscientist (talk) 13:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

COMMENT:

"Lithium" is not always a metal. In these articles, as in the standard literature, when we refer to an element, it's not always as the uncombined element. Potassium is an essential nutrient, for example, but not potassium metal. There is a "nitrogen cycle," but nitrogen is not elemental in all of it, and so on.

Some elements are more stable than others, just as some chairs are more stable than others. Stability is not a binary thing in ordinary life for nearly anything you consider stable, so why the nitpicking? More stable means "farther from the unstable point." There is a difference between a barely-stable thing and a very-stable thing. And if you think not, gook luck with your next trip to the hospital.

There are plenty of functions in living organism that aren't vital functions. The hair of your eyelashes and inside your nose serves no vital function, but it certainly serves a function. There are elements like this (Br comes to mind). One can easily tell if an element serves a vital function by depriving animals of it and seeing if they get ill or die. If the element serves some minor function like bromine or nose hair, that's not so easy. And there are elements that serve no function we know of, vital or not, like Al or Be. They are not like hair but more like (say) freckles. Of sourse there is some lithium in all organisms, just as there is some of all elements on Earth in all organisms (it just depends on how hard you look). But what do you do with elements that are concentrated in organisms? Does that mean they are vital or even used? No. Selenium is a good example of a nutrient that is concentrated by some plants that don't need it in any greater quantities (an they do just fine in selenium-poor soils). Do you want us to name the sea organisms that concentrate lithium? One of them? All known? What purpose would this level of detail serve?

Some others of your suggestions I agree with, but again it's nitpicking to say it's confusing that a free element is "very reactive," although the least rective of its group. It's easy to see how both statments can be true at the same time. I can have a fast car, but at the same time it might be the slowest car at the racetrack. Is that confusing? SBHarris 19:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• I am just going to point one example that comes into my mind: everybody knows about calcium and how it is necessary to have a lot of it for your health. So in common use, calcium is the name that people most often refer to what is Ca²⁺. Because of this use, I think it is very important that when one refers to Ca⁰ to refer to it as either calcium metal, or pure calcium, or elemental calcium instead of simply calcium. Same thing here with lithium. Nergaal (talk) 21:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

  I had a thought about this before changing "lithium metal" to lithium: the first sentence defines lithium as metal, thus the comment at the top is reasonable. Sure, there are other forms, but it is them which should be defined (lithium ions, lithium compounds, etc.). Much bio literature is less strict on terms and more loose with jargon. In other words, "lithium metal" is not an error, but could be omitted in places. Materialscientist (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, we should probably use the dictim that a term needs to be qualified only where it is unclear in context. Thus, when we say calcium is important in the body, we don't really need to say "calcium salts" because it's clear in context that we can't mean calcium metal. But when we say "Industrial production of gallium is N tones a year" it's not quite so clear in context except to somebody who already knows the numbers. In a lot of writing it's quite useful not to define a word more precisely than what you mean anyway. When we talk about the abundance of "iron" in the universe, do we mean the free element or the compounds? Well, both! We don't really know what state it's all in. When we talk about the abundance of "lithium" on Earth or the universe, it should be clear we're talking exclusively about lithium in salt or plasma form, but certainly never as the metal. For these and other reasons we probably need to have the question of whether an element occurs in "native form" answered early in every element article, to clear this up. If it does not, then only artificial forms will be isolated, and we need to qualify those, when they happen. If the element occurs both native and combined in nature, like bismuth, then we are more or less forced to qualify the form every time we use the word, except in cases where we're talking about the total. Anyway, this is a case-by-thing. Just point out instances where there's an eggregious case of unclarity, and be BOLD and FIXIT with a qualifier, if you think it needs one. As an editor, I'm certainly not going to revert any qualifier anybody has added, that they thought neeed to be there, however much I might fume on the TALK page. Qualifiers are hardly ever bad; they only add a little length. SBHarris 23:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

  I think we all understood that qualifies are needed when the meaning is unclear. So we usually say gold, silver, titanium, and add "metal" only to accentuate a narrow claim. "Lithium in the universe" - we usually don't care in which form, and if we did, we would add, e.g. xx in the bulk and yy in dispersed form. Common sense. Materialscientist (talk) 23:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

  Sure, but when for example showing a fire diamond, it is necessary to specify that it is for the metal/elemental form. Nergaal (talk) 23:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Medical section

• Kovacsics, CE; Gottesman, II; Gould, TD (2009). "Lithium's antisuicidal efficacy: elucidation of neurobiological targets using endophenotype strategies". Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology. 49: 175–98. doi:10.1146/annurev.pharmtox.011008.145557. PMID 18834309.
• Lithium: the unsung antisuicide medication
• Bruno Müller-Oerlinghausen, Anne Berghöfer, Bernd Ahrens,. "The Antisuicidal and Mortality-Reducing Effect of Lithium Prophylaxis: Consequences for Guidelines in Clinical Psychiatry". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Have been added. I wanted to have a look if this is useful. --Stone (talk) 18:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Lithium/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Shenhemu (talk) 14:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

This reads like a real good article, but let me check for details. Will try to finish asap. -- Shenhemu (talk) 14:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The article has been peer reviewed in 2007, was nearly GA then and has constantly improved ever since. One external link is broken at Ref 46 (Johan August Arfwedson) but already the web archive link next to it. Thumbs up! -- Shenhemu (talk) 14:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Any issues? Nergaal (talk) 02:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

No issues at all from my viewpoint. Passed GA and listed there. Shenhemu (talk) 10:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Big Bang theory

Lithium is one of only three elements - and the only metal - created in the first moments of the Big Bang.

This sentence should be rephrased, as the Big Bang is a theory which, while accepted by many cosmologists, has not been proven. Dforest 07:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Until they are disproven, or superseded by something else, the currently accepted scientific theories are encyclopedic enough. Femto 15:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

It is a theory and needed to be labeled as such.Badocter 18:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

All of scientific "knowledge" is theory, but it gets tedious to label it as such. "According to theory, dinosaurs walked around more than 65 million years ago." Do I really have to say that? "According to other theories, Tyrannosaurs didn't make it onto the Ark because of their bad table manners..." Steve 18:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Not all scientific knowledge is theory -- theory is what we use to fill the gaps in scientific knowledge. In the lead paragraph for "Lithium", is it really that important to note that nothing heavier the berylium was created in the first three minutes of the universe. Maybe we should add it to the lead paragrach of "Hydrogen", "Helium", and "Berylium" while we are at it. Then for "Boron" and all the heavier elements we can note that they were created sometime after the first three minutes. The information is relevent to the entries for cosmological theory, but not it is not appropriate in the lead paragraph of entries for individual elements.

The only scientific knowledge which is NOT theory is that which is true-by-definition, like the fact that humans are mammals. But that kind of "knowledge" is relatively cheap, and it's more knowledge of human culture, language and convention than knowledge of how the universe works. Suppose it had been decided that the platypus wasn't a mammal? Big deal. All the rest is theory. Sometimes it's theory that everybody believes, like the conservation of energy. Or that only nutcases don't believe. Like the conservation of energy. Theory it remains. It could be violated in a major way, any day, so far as we know. Nothing guarantees not. Steve 20:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

From the BBN article: "Without major changes to the Big Bang theory itself, BBN will result in 25% helium-4; about 1% of deuterium; trace amounts of lithium and beryllium; and no other heavy elements, leaving about 74% of H-1" BBN would be most appropriately noted under the helium article as BBN predicts helium levels that are consistent with observation, whereas previous methods significantly underpredicted helium presence, thus BBN passes notability criterion for inclusion in helium article. BBN makes prediction of lithium in only trace amounts, on that basis the statement in the lithium article fails the notability test. I suggest the BBN statement in the lithium article be moved to the helium article.

Depends on your point of view. BBN predicts Li in trace amounts, and traces are what he have. Lithium's not important to the big bang, but the big bang is pretty important to lithium. While the total % of the mass of universe made by the BBN into lithium is indeed tiny, as is the % deuterium, it's important from the viewpoint of lithium and deuterium because it's the source of just about all the D and most of the Li that exists. Li, Be and B are all pretty dang rare. Don't you think that's kind of remarkable, given the commonality of the elements that preceeed and follow them? BBN followed by the vagaries of fusion, expains all very neatly.Steve 04:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

BBN is a facinating topic, however, some of the literature I have read so far also discusses boron production in BBN [3][4][5], so the current statment that lithium is 1 of 4 may itself be inaccurate. There are also have been practical limitations for verifying the predictions of Li, Be, and B [6]. Badocter 11:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the correct proportions of hydrogen, helium, and lithium are one of the greatest successes of the Big Bang model, and no other theory has even attempted to explain the existence and abundences of elements beyond hydrogen. Maybe the sentence could be rephrased to reflect the role of lithium abundances in winning over pretty much the entire profession of cosmology to working within the framework of the Big Bang. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pioneeranomoly (talk • contribs) 22:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

False informtion on Lithium (disambiguation) having no Vital Biological Function.

Lithium is the Mineral Responsible for Biologically Balancing Bi-Polar Manic depression and is Administered by Doctors for Suicide Prevention.

Would you please revise this false information.

I applogize for the textbooks that will have to be re-written.

Sincerely,

Aaron D. Pearl Patient Harborview Medical Center Psyciatric Program / Seattle,Wa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.147.6.197 (talk) 18:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 216.12.24.106, 24 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} The Lithium article is not up-to-date. There are many references and other things that Lithium is used for that is not mentioned. Please do.

216.12.24.106 (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Baseball Watcher 02:32, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Applications section seems inconsistent with reality

Here is the summary of applications of Li from Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry: "About 25% of the lithium produced is used in the lubrication industry, 25% in the aluminum industry, 25% in the enamel, glass, and ceramic industries, and the rest for miscellaneous uses ..." Not sure why Ullmann's makes no mention of the battery aspect, probably because the battery industry consumes such a small amount of the 40,000 tons of lithium carbonate (equivalent) produced annually. Here is the listing from our Wiki article:

==Applications==

===Electrical and electronics===

"In the later years of the 20th century lithium became important as an anode material. Used in lithium-ion battery ..."

===Medicine===

"Lithium salts were used during the 19th century to treat gout. Lithium salts such as lithium carbonate ..."

===Chemical and industrial===

"Lithium is also used in the pharmaceutical and fine-chemical industry in the manufacture of organolithium reagents .."

===Nuclear===

"Lithium-6 is valued as a source material for tritium production and as a neutron absorber in nuclear fusion.."

===Other uses===

"Lithium fluoride, artificially grown as crystal, is clear and transparent and often used in specialist optics for .."

Not to sound too sarcastic, but all of the applications listed in the Wiki article would be considered miscellaneous and none of the real major applications are highlighted in subcategories. My guess is that the current predicament is an accretion of the biases and favorites of editors (such as the fascination with nuclear weapons, a theme that pervades many Wiki-element articles). I confess to biases with my editing, so I am not blaming anyone. But we should probably "rediagonalize" this section so that the article inform readers what lithium is really used for.

I looked at the German version, which won an award as a good goodness. It suffers from similar issues. Both the English and German articles have inexplicably large sections on medicinal aspect, a microscopic use. The medicine section should probably be reduced to a few sentences, as it appears to violate WP:UNDUE.--Smokefoot (talk) 16:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC) The y-axis should not say "per million Si atoms" since Si itself is located at 1 million on the y-axis instead of at 10 to the zero power (1). So the chart actually depicts absolute abundance rather than abundance relative to Si. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.233.118 (talk) 12:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, please go ahead and make the edits, and don't forget to list your sources... Shenhemu (talk) 05:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

We should have a section that has valid use-fractions for world lithium production. As we have in helium. However, after that, note that there's always some tension between the largest uses of a thing, and how much to write about them. For example, 93% of world potassium production is used in fertilizer, but it does not therefore follow that 93% of the applications section of potassium should be about fertilizer! Similarly, it's perfectly valid for bio-centric uses of an element to take up more than their "share" of space. Part of that is in addressing popular demand for knowledge-- for example the average person can identify lithium as an element of battery-cells and medication, and that's about it. This article can educate on the other stuff, but the reader is going to demand (I think rightly) to have those things fully addressed. As for nuclear weapons, they hang over the world like the Sword of Damocles-- it's always hard to know how much time and thought they should be given. SBHarris 05:54, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Your fertilizer example is helpful and probably should be inserted into a manual of style. If you want to see a list out of control check aluminium#applications Stuff that affects people's well being is inevitably highly weighted. You would know better, but my impression is that the use of lithium as a treatment for depression is only a small fraction of the means to treat that condition. I agree that applications that could spell mankind's demise (e.g. nukes) merit weight. --Smokefoot (talk) 11:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, lithium is a minor part of treatment of depression-only, but it remains a major player in the treatment of manic-depression (bipolar disorder), a different animal, as Li's one of the few things that reliably stops the mania without knocking the person out, and prevents recurrance without too many side effects for most people. And the mania can be terrible and (short of suicide) as destructive as the depression (best acting job for bipolar was Sally Fields' role in ER (TV series) if you ever saw that-- she nailed it). Think of Charlie Sheen having a bad day, but worse. So lithium's still in there, competing with far, far more expensive drugs.

Out of control application sections of course signal that we need a WP:SS spinoff article about that, as we have for magnalium, iodine in biology and indeed for lithium (medication). It's just that right before pregnant sections are ready to "calve" subarticles, they tend to be really fat and irritable and nobody is happy. Thus does WP grow. Once delivery is accomplished and section and subarticle are doing well, we wonder what the fuss was about. SBHarris 18:25, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Later: the pie chart was enormously helpful and should be a standard in all element articles (yes, I see you added it to the manual of style-- let's make it a project to see how much of this info we can find easily. Is there a template where we can generate these from basic data?). I've rearranged the first three Li uses to correspond with world production; this is progress. Perhaps we can commit to mention the first three uses of each element in order, then after that, use other criteria of interest or popularity to weight the others. Lithium in ceramics and glass needs a bit of expansion. SBHarris 18:58, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Gold Standard

While the term "gold standard" is pretty commonly used to mean something is the best, it may not be the best term to describe another elemental metal. It looks like the infromation was used from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20825264 I'm sure most people will understand, but I think it sounds pretty odd. It would be like saying that Ford is the Cadillac of cars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.62.83 (talk) 03:12, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It is not the elemental metal but lithium salts that are the "gold standard" in treating bipolar disorder. The term is used often in medicine to describe the best-known test or treatment, against which all others must be measured. Of course it's not a term specific to medicine. However, since there's an easy way to fix the language, I've done it. It's not quite as spirited, but will serve. SBHarris 20:46, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Spectrum Lines of Li.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Fisison Reactions, WTF?

This sentence: "they can be used in fission reactions as well as fusion reactions of nuclear devices" does not make any sense. The fusion reaction part is fine, but what is this about fission? Who wrote this? It sounds like you might have been talking about boosted thermonuclear weapons, but the way the sentence is phrased now implies that the lithium atoms can fission and release energy, which is obviously not true. IDK112 (talk) 19:59, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

You might try reading the article:

Lithium is also used as a source for alpha particles, or helium nuclei. When ⁷Li is bombarded by accelerated protons ⁸Be is formed, which undergoes spontaneous fission to form two alpha particles. This was the first man-made nuclear reaction, produced by Cockroft and Walton in 1929.<ref>Agarwal, Arun (2008). Nobel Prize Winners in Physics. APH Publishing. p. 139. ISBN 8176487430.</ref>

This is not a common type of fission, to be sure. But it has the charm of being the first to be discovered. Which is why it's here. I agree that it's rare enough that it should not appear in the lead without some reference to its historicity, to avoid the kind of confusion in readers you're having. SBHarris 01:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Bang. You just shot yourself in the foot. You admitted that proton plus Lithium-7 fuses to form Beryllium-8, (but with excess energy than ground state Be-8 which itself has higher excess energy than 2 Helium-4 (alphas) so it disintegrates very rapidly) however science does recognize particle that exist for picoseconds. See article on Aneutronic fusion. Easier to understand is thermal neutron plus Li-7 giving Lithium-8 which exists for a fraction of a second before decay to Be-8 and then splitting. Consider these reactions are not absolutes but only probabilities. Consider, in "fission", the "fusion" of a neutron and U235 which yields high energy metastable state of U236: 99% of the time the atom splits, but ~1% releases the excess energy as an MeV Gamma ray, the U236 atom then has a multimillion year half life. Note in the Wiki Hydrogen Bomb history that high energy x-rays pump u235 and U238 to their high energy states inducing them to fission without neutron absorption. In Neutron source, Xrays of 1.7 MeV induce Beryllium to Fission and release its loosely bound (~700 KeV binding energy) Neutron.

Shjacks45 (talk) 06:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I just read this and fail to see your point. All "fission" reactions that aren't spontaneous involve a sort if simple prior "fusion" with a particle that provides energy or simply a different structure. This is a nuclear reaction. So WHAT, if some if the time U-235 absorbs a neutron without fission? When it does fission after being hit by a neutron, we still call that "fission." The excited U-236 has a certain (small) lifetime before it fissions, also, just as excited Be-8 does. Could you perhaps try again to communicate your beef? SBHarris 18:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

What is a "high level" of lithium in normal drinking water?

The article mentions supposed benefits from higher-than-average lithium levels in drinking water, but it doesn't mention what constitutes such a level. I.e. what amount of lithium (in ppm or ppb) is typical for drinking water supplies, how much is a "low concentration" (say 5% percentile) and how much is "high" (say 95% percentile)? If anybody has that information please add it. -- 77.21.178.165 (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I will have a look into the literature.--Stone (talk) 20:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Ohgami, H.; Terao, T.; Shiotsuki, I.; Ishii, N.; Iwata, N. (2009). "Lithium levels in drinking water and risk of suicide". The British Journal of Psychiatry. 194 (5): 464–5, discussion 446. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.108.055798. PMID 19407280.

Texas counties were arbitrarily divided into (relatively) high (70–160 mg/l), moderate (13–60 mg/l) and low (0–12 mg/l) areas.

• Zald�Var, Robert (1980). "High lithium concentrations in drinking water and plasma of exposed subjects". Archiv f�r Toxikologie. 46 (3–4): 319. doi:10.1007/BF00310450. {{cite journal}}: replacement character in |journal= at position 9 (help); replacement character in |last1= at position 5 (help)

5.45 µg/l ... ; in another ... a mean of 137.98 ... Camarones River (Quebrada Camarones), the means ... 5170.62 µg/l... The lithium concentrations in water samples from Camarones River are the highest in the world

• Schrauzer, Gerhard N.; Shrestha, Krishna P. (1990). "Lithium in drinking water and the incidences of crimes, suicides, and arrests related to drug addictions". Biological Trace Element Research. 25 (2): 105–13. doi:10.1007/BF02990271. PMID 1699579.

High (mean Li content 123 ± 25 µg Li/L, range 70-160µg Li/L)

• Concha, Gabriela; Broberg, Karin; Grandér, Margaretha; Cardozo, Alejandro; Palm, Brita; Vahter, Marie (2010). "High-Level Exposure to Lithium, Boron, Cesium, and Arsenic via Drinking Water in the Andes of Northern Argentina". Environmental Science & Technology. 44 (17): 6875. doi:10.1021/es1010384.

village median values ranged from ... 340 to 4550 μg/L of lithium,

--Stone (talk) 20:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

So: Hogh means certainly above 70µg/l but more likely 150µg/l and above. The maximum looks like is close to 5000µg/l. I hope it helps.

--Stone (talk) 07:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Lithium Orotate in research in Germany 2008 and in USA via dr. John Grey is very important to be heard via History of medicine and natural treatments!

Dear Friends I found so much good news in You Tube about Lithium Orotate and all facts and differences between products in the World from different companies should be listed in Wikepedia, to make us undestand which company has the good formula. I understand mother milk acids are best to uptake minerals and vitamins to the brain as latest Product from www.marsvenus.com.... As you see Sweden are going to answere me on my questions, and I need to see this changes in Wikepedia history of Lithium treatment. I will soon order this new version and test Litium Orotate, and has written about this to Education Department of Sweden. Patient Insurance reserachers are reading my papers, and I have also a Lawyer etc....I have told everybody about this good news. It is shocking news for doctors who has been living of selling poisons till now to hear my voice. I will soon get answeres and see if humanity can heal the world. If you like make the changes no to help me with these problems, as a team on Wikepedia who belive in the facts you have written about Lithium Orotate effectiveness.

Thank You Negar Riahi n_riahi@yahoo.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_orotate

---

Forwarded Message -----

From: Wikipedia information team <info-en@wikimedia.org>

To: Negar Riahi <n_riahi@yahoo.com> 

Cc: "info@patientforsakring.se" <info@patientforsakring.se>; "kollberg.anders@telia.com" <kollberg.anders@telia.com> Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2012 10:08 PM

Subject: Re: [Ticket#2012102010006594] I suggest you can write in Lithium History about Lithium Orotate research in Wikepedia!

Dear Negar Riahi,

Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message.

10/20/2012 19:07 - Negar Riahi wrote:

> Hi there > I have to tell you something important about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium! > Sweden are going to eliminate all poisons from Medicines soon. Ecological view on medication and Human body is now in focus via PRIO. http://www.regeringen.se/ > The Research of Lithium Orotate in USA 2011 and earlier in Germany 2008 has to be reflected in Wikepedia soon in the history part about medcine and health facts as best news for patients. > Please do this to save energy from doctors to accept this fact. > Contact Sweden if you doubt! > Thanks > http://www.negarpaintings.blogspot.se/ > > > > Best regards > Negar > http://www.negarpaintings.blogspot.se/

Although we appreciate your interest in our project, I apologize that the email response team can not make changes on request for all articles. Unfortunately, the limited number of volunteers involved cannot keep up with such requests due to the very large number of emails we receive daily.

However, I invite you to make the changes you suggested yourself. Wikipedia is a 'wiki', which means that everyone can edit pages. You don't need to apply or get special permission to join us. You can try editing a page at the Sandbox <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox>; simply click the 'edit' link at the top of the page. You can edit without logging in, although registering gives you more options and helps you keep track of your contributions, and will give you attribution to your selected username. You can create an account at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin/signup>.

You can also suggest these change at the talk page for Lithium, found here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lithium>

If you're interested, please see our introductory pages at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome>. You may also find the tutorial useful at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial>.

Thank you for your interest, and I hope you join us!

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-- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org --- Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on https://www.wikimediafoundation.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.109.116.9 (talk) 06:17, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Sinks in denser liquid, rises in less dense liquid??

"Because of its reactivity with water, lithium is usually stored under cover of a viscous hydrocarbon, often petroleum jelly. Though the heavier alkali metals can be stored in less dense substances, such as mineral oil, lithium is not dense enough to be fully submerged in these liquids."

What? Why would something that sinks in higher density material rise in lower density material? Anything that sinks in water is not going to float in air, as a simple counterexample. Is this about submerging via sinking or is something else referred to by "submergence"? Because as it is in sounds like "it can sink in petroleum jelly, but can't sink in less dense substances like mineral oil." If the intention is that the viscosity of the jelly keeps the lithium from rising, it should be stated as "less viscous substances such as mineral oil" and not "less dense substances" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.120.23.40 (talk) 08:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

You're right, thanks. I've rephrased it to make more sense.

Because of its reactivity with water, lithium is usually stored under cover of a viscious hydrocarbon, often petroleum jelly. Though the heavier alkali metals can be stored in more dense substances, such as mineral oil, lithium is not dense enough to be fully submerged in these liquids.

Reatlas (talk) 10:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

LiD *is* the preferred fusion bomb fuel

Lithium deuteride was the fusion fuel of choice in early versions of the hydrogen bomb. When bombarded by neutrons, both 6Li and 7Li produce tritium. Tritium fuses with deuterium in a fusion reaction that is relatively easy to achieve. Although details remain secret, lithium apparently no longer plays a role in modern nuclear weapons, having been replaced entirely for the purpose by tritium, which is lighter and easier to handle than lithium salts.

I find it hard to believe this. LiD is WAY easier _and_ cheaper to produce, handle and store than D/T mix. I'm proposing deletion of this paragrapth. Lithium_deuteride article also does not support this claim.

I know this is very late after this post, but lithium deuteride is only used in older weapon designs. More modern designs do indeed use tritium gas as the thermonuclear fuel. The relatively short half-life of tritium means that the war head has a relatively short shelf life before the tritium requires replacement. The tritium is easily produced in nuclear reactors by irradiating lithium-6 with neutrons. In theory, lithium-7 can also yield tritium by the same bombardment, but as this is an endothermic reaction (absorbs energy), it tends to be self quenching unless very large sources of energy are at hand (such as a thermonuclear bomb - this was the unexpected reaction in Castle Bravo). DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:02, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting claim.

"Lithium is the only metal which reacts with nitrogen under Standard conditions for temperature and pressure."

I don't have access to the citation as given, but I would be very surprised if it supported this claim - especially given that it is not true. There are several metals that react with nitrogen under standard temperature and pressure. Two that immediately leap to mind are magnesium and zirconium. If a burning strip of magnesium ribbon is inserted into a gas jar filled with nitrogen it will continue to burn, albeit feebly, but it will burn. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Following on: I think I see what the references are actually claiming even though it is not the full story. The claim is that metallic lithium when exposed to nitrogen or air will react with the nitrogen. It is true that other metals do not do that. Objection withdrawn. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:45, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Radium apparently does that too. Double sharp (talk) 04:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Lithium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Periodic Table - Lithium. Other information was obtained from the sources listed on the main page but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

---

Uh, where did the price information come from? The current text says $300/lb in 1997, but the USGS Minerals Yearbook linked at the bottom says $43.30/lb in 97 and 98. Pretty substantial difference! Depends on where you buy it, I suppose, but what number would be most useful to a general interest reader like me?

The 300$/lb figure is probably for the ultra pure grades available from laboratory suppliers like Aldrich. I expect the variety used in batteries is significantly less pure and less expensive. Anybody have an up-to-date Aldrich catalog to confirm?Badocter 09:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I have found the source for the 300 $/lb price [7]. No indication is made about the purity grade.Badocter 09:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The price if lithium seems to vary to much to be of much use in an article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.49.221.194 (talk) 18:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

"lithium is less common in the solar system than 25 of the first 32 chemical elements". Can the author of this explain how the abundance of elements in the solar system can be determined ? Or is this purely speculative ? Who is to say that vast reserves of lithium compounds do not occur on one of the other planets ? g4oep — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.60.31 (talk) 08:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Heavy vs dense

The text says "The next lightest element is over 60% more dense (potassium...)"

This seems to be mixing measurements. I would normally associate lightness/heaviness with weight, not density. (Something may be relatively light or heavy, but that doesn't change its actual weight - 1kg of lead is still lighter than 2kg of helium). Would it not be clearer for this sentence to read, "The next densest element is..."? To me, the next lightest element is beryllium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.50.194.39 (talk) 07:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Would someone who is competent to do so please replace the density values given in obsolete cgs units by corresponding values in SI units (i.e. kg.m^3) ? All of the other quantities quoted in this article seem to be in SI units, as one would expect. g4oep — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.60.31 (talk) 08:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

In chemistry g/cm³ seems to be the more common unit – I imagine because it makes the values for the elements not be in the hundreds and thousands. I think it also drives the point home for the comparison with water's 1 g/cm³ – it is really obvious that 0.534 (the density of Li in g/cm³) is below 1 just from the leading zero. Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

New redlinks

I've wikified LiHe and Van der Waals compound, both current redlinks but both good topics closely related to the material in this article, LiHe particularly. Andrewa (talk) 05:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

See http://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/42 for information on both topics. Andrewa (talk) 05:33, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Article needs to be updated

Apparently novae are a major source of lithium according to recent research.[8][9] 67.174.254.238 (talk) 06:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Well...yes...but aren't novae the main source of everything? Not particularly of note for this article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Production numbers in chart wrong?

The mine production table says annual production is 36000 tonnes. The chart in the production sections indicates more than 600000 tonnes in 2015. Zalumon (talk) 19:58, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

The source for the 600,000 says 400,000 tonnes comes from Spodumene in Australia from which the Lithium is extracted, maybe the other chart does not count that. (On a side note: I'd like to know more about potential reserves, which is why I came to this article.) Raquel Baranow (talk) 04:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

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Lithium#Regulation

Lithium#Regulation needs to be split into two paragraphs. 203.118.169.160 (talk) 05:43, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.  ^B E _C K ^Y _S A ^{Y L} E _S  06:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

It is obvious. There are two distinct topics in the one long paragraph. 203.118.169.160 (talk) 07:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

 Done - Arjayay (talk) 19:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Lithium/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

*Lithium can be used to make red fireworks lithium or lithium salts? expand the Production section

Last edited at 14:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 22:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course lithium salts in actuality -- metallic lithium would be too unstable -- but I would not recommend changing the text. For one, naming all intermediates is not necessary in these summary statements. For another, metallic compounds are often named for the metal itself -- uranium mines, magnesium supplements, mercury poisoning, arsenic paint, dietary sodium, etc. Much of the text in these chemistry articles follows that convention. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Discourse 22:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2016

Sdeemyad (talk) 22:34, 8 June 2016 (UTC) The superconductivity of lithium under pressure (reference 10)should also site these other references (two of which are earlier referenes too) 1)Lang, K. et al. Search for superconductivity in lithium. Journal of Low Temperature Physics 114, 445-454 (1999). 2)Shimizu, K., Ishikawa, H., Takao, D., Yagi, T. & Amaya, K. Superconductivity in compressed lithium at 20K. Nature 419, 597-599 (2002). 3)Deemyad, S. & Schilling, J. S. Superconducting Phase Diagram of Li Metal in Nearly Hydrostatic Pressures up to 67 GPa. Physical Review Letters 91, 167001 (2003).

Not done for now: @Sdeemyad: I have place a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#Lithium to verify the sources you have provided.  ^B E _C K ^Y _S A ^{Y L} E _S  20:26, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Lithium production figure is misleading

The graph of world lithium production appears to be compiled from USGS data that actually records lithium bearing minerals production not lithium refined product used in most applications such as lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide. Production of the former is 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes per annum whereas the latter is around 35,000 tonnes. Neither figure is the actual lithium metal amount for which I can find no reliable figure.

These distinctions are important in understanding the lithium supply situation. For example Tesla may need up to 30,000 tonnes or more of lithium carbonate equivalent for just the existing pre orders for its latest Model 3 electric car. Csblanco (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The USA is also a lithium producer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.177.192.37 (talk) 12:00, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Lithium as a fuel for magnetoplasmadynamic thruster

I think it is worth mentioning it as potential fuel for Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.160.23 (talk) 20:09, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 30 November 2016

Rockwood mentioned in the article does not exist any more as it was purchased by Albemarle Corp. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albemarle_Corporation Frncz (talk) 03:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 20:42, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Primary Use

"Worldwide, this is the single largest use for lithium compounds.[99][100]" According to [99] the largest use is batteries, not flux as [100] claims. [99] appears to both current and more credible. Lewis Goudy (talk) 03:17, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

De-emphasize the unnamed alarmist minority viewpoint on #Reserves

Lithium/Archive 1#Reserves opens with

Opinions differ about potential growth. A 2008 study concluded that "realistically achievable lithium carbonate production will be sufficient for only a small fraction of future PHEV and EV global market requirements ... more gloom and doom"

Why is a single 2008 study given so much prominence? A 2010 New York Times article on the subject says:

"There's only one person in the world, basically, who ever decided we were short of lithium, and that's this guy [William] Tahil, in France," Gaines said.

Tahil, a researcher with technology consulting firm Meridian International Research, has published papers arguing that global lithium deposits will not meet the projected need from battery usage.

...

Two global conferences on lithium supply were scheduled after Tahil's alarming conclusions were published, Jaskula said. "Everyone came out with the understanding that there's so much lithium out there that those [articles] are not very valid. They don't hold much -- they're just not very well-researched," he said.

There's no point in opening with a lopsided controversy only to walk it back later. Seems the entire viewpoint should be moved to lower down and shortened to "The Meridian International technology consulting firm has disagreed with the optimistic analysis."

Page 2 of https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2017-lithi.pdf gives Lithium reserves (14 billion tons), and from 2015 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Is-There-Enough-Lithium-to-Maintain-the-Growth-of-the-Lithium-Ion-Battery-M tries to relates reserves to consumption. Those links are more up-to-date than the ones in the article. To sum up, we don't run out for a century unless battery production incrases 50-fold -- Skierpage (talk) 21:28, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

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Symmetry Space Group

Who can add '-I 4 2 3 (Hall)' and 'I m -3 m (Hermann-Mauguin)' to the ChemBox? I am not yet familiar with that thing. Reference: http://www.crystallography.net/cod/9008542.html Simon de Danser (talk) 07:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

SimonDeDanser In template {{Chembox}} of an article, you can add the spacegroup like this:

{{chembox
| ...
|Section3={{Chembox Structure
| CrystalStruct = [[Halite]] (cubic), [[Pearson symbol|cF8]]
| SpaceGroup = Fm<u style="text-decoration:overline">3</u>m, No. 225
 }}
}}

(example from Magnesium oxide. Here are more examples). There are no prelisted options in this.

Does this help? -DePiep (talk) 09:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Oops no it doesn't, because this is not {{chembox}} (sad face icon here). I will take an other look. -DePiep (talk) 09:20, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

• re SimonDeDanser, if the space group (or any crystallographic information) is noteworthy for lithium, please add it to the article body text (running sentences), with a source. If you think it is noteworthy for multiple elements, please advocate here why it should be added to the infobox. The infobox should only contain such remarkable info, (not an ~indiscriminate list of data). And yes, you can find less important info in it, but we should be critical on information added. -DePiep (talk) 10:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Table of production, reserves and resources

I have reverted the table to single source version. Figures from United States Geological Survey are reliable and have in particular single methodology. Combining figures from multiple sources with unknown methodology to one table is not a good idea, as these figures simply are not comparable. But they can me mentioned somewhere in the text (as currently for the Czech Republic).--Jklamo (talk) 12:49, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

The graph of world production is not accurate, probably due to a mix of different lithium products. It would be wise to convert all the world production into Lithium metal (as the USGS did) so there is a way to compare. According to the USGS data the world production of Lithium metal in 2016 was 38,000 metric tons, which is equivalent to 202,287 metric tons of lithium carbonate, so if you look at the graph, it reads something about 580,000 tons way larger.

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Comment without a header

Article changed over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 14:58, 23 Jun 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 06:27, 20 Jun 2005).

Little market?

"There is little market for lithium in its pure metal form and price information is scarce." This seems wrong to me. Lithium metal is widely used in various kinds of batteries, rechargeable and non-rechargeable. Laptops, cameras, you name it. How can it be said that there is "little market" for the metal?

Little market? Compared to steel, yes. Compared to gold, no. Would we say there is little market for gold?

Periodic table image

Why not just do the intuitive thing and link *TableImage.png to the periodic table instead of that Full table link, which adds no actual information? Mkweise 21:34 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

You mean redirect the image page to the periodic table page? That's not a good idea, me thinks. --mav

I was thinking [[Periodic table/Standard Table|Image:Li-TableImage.png]] - won't that work? Well, let's find out: Image:Li-TableImage.png. Mkweise 21:52 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

also the image will hopefully become an image map, when the facilities arrive, for it to become one. -fonzy

Now that would be truly cool, but if that's the plan shouldn't the images be a bit larger? The tip of my mouse pointer is bigger than the cells in the images currently are. Giving the image the full width of the sidebar could make a real difference in navigation accuracy. Mkweise 22:00 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)

Check out the nav image at http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Li.html --mav

I was also planning on having a larger version of the image with explanatory text on the image description pages. Not to mention the primary use of these pages - copyright and owner (me) info. --mav

Lack of references, UNREAD references?

1. ⁶Li reacts with thermal neutrons to form metastable high energy ⁷Li which may release the excess energy as 4.7 MeV Gamma ray or "emit an Alpha particle" e.g. divide and split the energy between an ⁴He and ³H (Tritium), OR it may re-emit the neutron. ²³⁵U has a wide difference in activity between Thermal and fast neutrons; not so with Lithium. ⁷Li will absorb thermal neutrons to form ⁸Li which subsequently decomposes to ⁸Be then to 2x ⁴He. ⁷Li can absorb a Gamma ray and the metastable high energy ⁷Li will emit a neutron and ⁶Li. (Reaction is used when Lithium used in Neutron sources) Fast neutrons will engage ⁷Li in a (n,2n) > ⁶Li reaction multiplying neutrons. I can find no reference to irradiating ⁷Li with neutrons to create Tritium (tritium production would require ⁵He be produced as well), except as they first create ⁶Li.

2. See Nuclear reaction and Aneutronic fusion, ²H (Deuterium) + ⁶Li = 2x ⁴He and ²H (Deuterium) + ⁷Li = 2x ⁴He + neutron are lower energy reactions and are more likely to occur. The bomb would need to be enriched in ⁶Li because ⁷Li does not generate Tritium on neutron irradiation. An x-ray absorption by ⁷Li would generate Tritium but similar energy X-ray would also split Deuterium into proton and neutron per Neutron source and Neutron generator articles.

3. Absorption of neutron by Boron-10 generates enough excess energy to split the resulting ¹¹B into ⁷Li and ⁴He.

4. Magnesium is Zinc-like: easily pairs S electrons, monoatomic vapor, unusually low boiling point compared to Lithium which is higher then its class. Magnesium does not interchange in minerals containing Lithium, Magnesium interchanges with Ferrous ions.

5. The distinction between "Lithium" and "Lithium ion" battery types is ignorant of chemistry. Why not just list the electrochemical potential of Lithium? Battery potential doesn't really belong. Lithium:Thionyl Chloride (circuit boards) is 3.7 volts, Lithium:IronPhosphate is 3.2 volts; I could not find a "nanowire" battery at Walmart but they did have 1.5 Volt Lithium Batteries.

6. The first stage of Hydrogen fusion in stars is formation of transient ²He (how unlikely huh?) with a tiny but finite possibility of becoming Deuterium instead of flying apart. Several rate limiting steps later we get ⁴He. H+H+H+H=He is a millenially long reaction but Suns have volume. The first step of Helium burning, ⁸Be, like Hydrogen fusion is unstable and forms in equilibrium amounts. Lucky the Sun can support endothermic reactions! Fusion has a diagram of fusion rates vs temperature and Helium burning tails into Proton only thermonuclear fusion. As from Neutron references above, Deuterium is decomposed by a 2.26MeV photon and ⁹Be by a 1.7MeV photon. I would supposed that trans-Helium elements such as Li, Be, and Boron are stable to thermonuclear conditions; incorrectly stated in this article. And I could find no isotopic reference to ¹⁰Be decay by alpha emission, it decays 100% to ¹⁰B not to Lithium.

7. In Tritium "High-energy neutrons irradiating boron-10 will also occasionally produce tritium. The more common result of boron-10 neutron capture is ⁷
Li
and a single alpha particle.

Proposed merge with Lithium as an investment

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This article duplicates much existing content, and offers little about the issues of investing in the trading of Lithium that couldn't be reasonably covered in a few short sentences in the main article. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Merge as per argument above, also because it is under a title unlikely to be searched. Suggest it be merged under the heading Production. Under its current title it looks more like advertising although it does have valid production information. Ex nihil ^(talk) 01:32, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• I Agree that this article should be merged with the Lithium main article into § Production.
  Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 20:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Merge as proposed. --Zefr (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
• Don't merge. This topic is potentially worth an article; ideally, a daughter article for lithium, which this article does appear to look like. See other examples: compounds of fluorine, lead poisoning, etc. This concept should be introduced in the main lithium article and explained here in detail. If there is any advertisement right now, of course, it should be removed.--R8R (talk) 09:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC
• Merge There are quite a few other "as an investment" articles. But I couldn't find any RS covering lithium investment; if there is it could be created but even then could be added to alternative investment, or kept here as a short section. The non-production sections look pretty awful and are based on awful, some commercial, nonRS. The production sections look to need verification before merging; someone has pointed out an error in the talkpage. Galobtter (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
• Don't Merge. As noted we have other articles (Gold as an investment, Silver as an investment, Platinum as an investment, Palladium as an investment-- I don't know how many others) and it would be impossible to shoehorn them back into the original element production articles such as (gold mining, gold mining in the United States, etc) and certainly not into the primary element articles. We have diamonds as an investment and exploration diamond drilling and I would hate to put it all back in carbon. The future will run on lithium batteries. I can only suggest you save work and hive off growing subarticles whenever you can. Wikipedia grows this way, and hardly ever by subsuming subarticles permanently. The latter process is for taking care of duplicate stubs that nobody noticed were duplicates by different names. Again per WP:SS, make this a major subarticle of lithium production, and in turn mention the production article in the element article. Summarize each. SBHarris 01:49, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
• Merge per above. Thanks, User:ST15RMwikipedia 21:39, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose merging, very strongly, and close this discussion, which has not achieved consensus for merging after a more than reasonable length of time. The general article on lithium is too long as it is.

This is a deletion attempt disguised as a merge, an all too common occurrence. I doubt seriously that an AfD against Lithium as an investment would succeed.

—Syrenka V (talk) 23:24, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extraction

@Chrissymad: I think it's better to leave some information on flotation method. And why not to fix spelling instead of removing all changes? That's counterproductive. Have you seen WP:BABY? DAVRONOVA.A. ✉ ⚑ 18:57, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Update needed

The chart does not show the real lithium reserves worldwide, as of March 2018. Here you can see the real reserves. Tokota (talk) 09:55, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

There was just one small error, corrected per USGS source.--Jklamo (talk) 11:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I am too lazy to login.. someone consider changing "brines" to "brine". That sounds more correct, at least to me in North America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.16.30.171 (talk) 08:00, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Isotopic ratio is wrong

The isotopic abundances should be changed from 95% and 5% to the NIST values: 92.41% and 7.59% for 7Li and 6Li, respectively. Compare: https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/Compositions/stand_alone.pl?ele=&all=all&ascii=html&isotype=all (134.76.233.76 (talk) 13:14, 5 September 2019 (UTC))

Done. Was already there in Isotopes of lithium. -DePiep (talk) 13:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 1) Lithium is a problematic case – the natural variability of its isotopic abundances is very small (the abundance for ⁷Li varies from 92.27% to 92.78%), but there is a lot of Li on the market that is depleted in ⁶Li (which has valuable nuclear applications). So the isotopic abundances for most Li you will actually get on the market varies a lot: ⁷Li can then have abundance ranging from 92.2% to 98.1% (these bounds given by CIAAW), and the 95% value was deliberately in the middle of this and snapped to five percentage points to imply a lack of precision. I see DePiep has already made the requested edit, so I have gone on to correct the infobox so that it says that the variation happens in commercial samples, not natural samples. Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Isn't it irregular to mention non-natural abundances? Irregular as in: we don't do that at enwiki, except for topical descriptions (where that abundance is the topic). Anyway, not in the infobox then (especially wwhen this is not in the body text as is the case here). -DePiep (talk) 14:56, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

It's important because these abundances will impact samples of Li you actually get and are the entire reason why the atomic weight of Li is now standardly quoted with such imprecision. As this issue is in fact mentioned in the body text (see the second-last paragraph of "Isotopes", albeit without precise figures) I think it should be left in the infobox. Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

"Uthium" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Uthium. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 19:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Abundance in Oceans

Ive seen in a site that - The amount of Li+ in seawater is estimated to be nearly 230,000 million tons, almost 57000 times higher than its land abundance. https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/harvesting-vital-lithium-from-sea-water-329602 should this not be present in the Occurrence section — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oreolvrsshane1987 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

added reference to this from peer reviewed journal--Oldboltonian (talk) 09:40, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2020

there is 7.2 mg of lithium in 1kg of sea salt 75.23.228.61 (talk) 20:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ComplexRational (talk) 01:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

perhaps the addition mentioned in the above section answers the question. there is about 35g/l salt in seawater and between 0.1 and 0.2mg/l Li. so if you evaporate seawater to dryness you get 3-6mg Li. Extraction of lithium from seawater is an attractive idea, but today it's way more expensive than extraction from spodumene or brine.--Oldboltonian (talk) 09:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)