Lithium has begun to appear in some ski construction (Elan for example) and we thought it would be interesting to know more about this rare metal.
Lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table. Recently Lithium has drawn attention because it is a key ingredient in powerful, compact batteries. It is also used in specialized alloys in aircraft.
Most lithium comes from subterranean salt lakes hundreds of meters below some of the driest places on earth. Miners pump brine up from the deposits into settling ponds on the surface. A shallow green lake forms that is about 6% lithium. Once the water evaporates the Lithium Carbonate is extracted and processed.
As an interesting sidebar, Lithium Carbonate is used in fireworks for the color red but it has a long history in medicine dating back to the mid 19th Century. A soft drink called Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda was launched two weeks before the 1929 Wall Street Crash, a happy coincidence since it contained Lithium Citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. Specifically it was marketed as a hangover cure. Later the name was changed to Seven Up (apparently because Lithium has an atomic mass of 7). In 1950 Lithium was removed from Seven Up’s formula. Lithium is now found in the treatment of bipolar disorders.
Chile is the main source of lithium today but other deposits are known to exist in Bolivia and Argentina and in smaller reserves around the world. About 30,000 tons are produced annually.
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