Element of the Week: Lithium (Li)



I don't know why I chose this, I guess because it's use in treating people with bipolar disorder. But, it turns out to be a pretty cool element!



Lithium is an alkali metal, along with Sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium and francium. All of these elements are in Group 1 on the periodic table, and therefore have one electron in their outer shell. As a result of that lone electron out there, they are highly reactive. Lithium is so reactive with oxygen that it has to be stored in labs under cover of mineral oil.


Lithium must feel very strange. It is a very light metal, and has the consistency when you pick it up of a piece of light wood. Despite its light weight, however, it is very strong. So it is used in the construction of aircraft.

Lithium is the least dense element. But, in a strange twist it has very high specific heat. Specific heat is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature a substance by a certain amount. That surprises me given how little density it has. Anyway, because of this, it Lithium is used to store energy.

As a treatment for mental illness, Li reacts with neurotransmitters in the brain, replacing Na, K or Ca to change the chemical makeup of those transmitters.

The World's Ozone According to my Friends:

Based on my observations, people are confused about ozone. Everyone seemed to understand that the hole in the stratospheric ozone is the reason why we have to fight sunscreen battles with our children before heading to the beach, or even school. But no one knew what the status of that crisis was: is it improving now that we don't use CF Cs? People generally thought that this problem had been dealt with successfully, but they still would use sunscreen. Obviously, there has been little awareness in the public about that fact that the elimination of CF Cs has not eradicated this problem.

As for the accumulation of bad ozone in the troposphere, I didn't speak with anyone who knew about this. When I told them their initial reaction was "great--more ozone, less sunscreen". I was sorry to inform them otherwise. It may be that people are more familiar with this idea than they think, however, because lots of people understand that the accumulation of greenhouse gases is bad. Hence the Prius, electric car craze.

Atomic Structure Links Review

I liked the two links that are apparently designed for A level exams. They made things very simple and understandable, and I particularly liked the graphic illustrations of covalent bonds. For me, chemistry only makes sense when I'm thinking about compounds I'm familiar with. So, it was useful to me to learn how table salt is formed, why the electrons "like" that bond in that they are more stable together than separately.