Lithium is a silvery-white metal, slightly harder than sodium but softer than lead. It is the lightest of all metals, with a specific weight of 0.534 g/cm3 , that is, half that of water. Like the other alkali metals in its group (sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium), lithium is chemically very active and never occurs as a pure element in nature. It is found in the form of a mineral or as a stable salt.
Lithium minerals occur in nature, mainly in granitic pegmatites, which are coarse-grained igneous rocks composed of quartz, feldspar and mica. Spodumene and other lithium minerals generally occur as an accessory mineral in pegmatites.
Your phone, laptop, tablet are probably powered by lithium-ion batteries. But this ore has many other uses. It can also be used for network storage, making heat resistant glass and ceramics, industrial greases, and even treating bipolar disorder and depression.
Lithium carbonate is the product of lithium in industrial consumption and can be considered as the most significant lithium compound.
Lithium metal is used in the manufacture of anodes of primary lithium batteries with high energy density. Various lithium salts (chloride, bromide, iodide, perchlorate and nitrite) are used as electrolytes in primary and secondary lithium batteries.
Demand for lithium has become so intense that countries from Australia to China and South America are in a race to exploit its resources.
Brazil's total production has the potential to reach the total mark of 630 thousand tons per year of lithium concentrate.
In January 2022 the price of lithium carbonate reached USD 42,000 p/ton.
