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The Secret, Magical Life Of Lithium
One of the oldest, scarcest elements in the universe has given us treatments for mental illness, ovenproof casserole dishes and electric cars. But how much do we really know about lithium?
posted by ShooBoo on Nov 16, 2024 at 10:08 PM
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Super interesting thanks, I never knew how a metal could fix a mental condition (although it still sounds a bit unknown), but I know a guy who's life was revolutionzed by lithium, going from nearly institutionalised to completely normal in less than a year. Unbeliveable to see and very nice to see.
posted by unearthed at 12:03 AM
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Spodumene? [LiAlSi2O6]: there's a reef of that lithium-rich white rock exposed on the West face of the hills behind our house. Sufficient to attract €2milion of Chinese venture capital to fund drilling some test cores 10-12 years ago. Driving to work at The Institute at about that time, I wondered about the level of lithium in the ground water and also whether different species of tree would/could preferentially concentrate Li Na and K. I was, ludicrously, teaching water chemistry at the time and devised a lab practical testing the tree filter hypothesis.
One the students in that class insisted that I was going to supervise his final year research project the next academic year; and that became a PhD project. Although it was initially refused external funding because ". . . the supervisor lacks any track-record or credibility in the field of water chemistry . . .". True dat! But the following year, The Institute had hired a real water chemist who took over the teaching and the graduate student and secured funding.
We/ they sampled water [out of domestic boreholes connected to kitchen faucets - which meant we didn't need Chinese VC! ] from transects across the county.
Q. and the answer???
A. data is really noisy.
One of the side-bars to the adventure was testing all the holy wells in the region . . . to find that their lithium titre was not significantly elevated.
Lawrence Wright's 2010 New Yorker article "Lithium Dreams" is on message but has some push-back
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:16 AM
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In 1897, the bestselling car in the U.S. was the electric Columbia Motor Carriage. Back then, electric vehicles were outcompeting their counterparts powered by petrol and steam. New York City even had a short-lived electric taxicab service called the Electrobat.
In my yard there are remnants of the Interurban railway, which was an extensive electric interurban railway built in the late 1800s that ran hundreds of miles throughout the Cleveland suburbs, thus connecting the city with the surrounding Ohio wilderness. It's so interesting how electric and battery powered transport was available over a hundred years ago! The regression to dirty fossil fuels was only justified by greed.
posted by waving at 4:07 AM
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Fascinating article; thanks for posting!
posted by travertina at 5:32 AM
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I did not know about the relative scarcity of lithium, which is fascinating.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:45 AM
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Yeah, I don't know if I can truly appreciate lithium without experiencing an alternate reality in which it doesn't exist.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:09 AM
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