" Lithium production from brines is about 61 per cent of total production, with the rest being derived from minerals, and this is where Australia comes in. Australia may not have significant brine sources of lithium but Western Australia boasts one of the world’s largest producers of lithium minerals - the company is Talison Minerals Pty Ltd and the mine is the Greenbushes pegmatite mine (about 200km south of Perth), which has the capacity to supply roughly 65 per cent of global demand from current reserves ".
LITHIUM is the 3rd element on the Periodic Table. It is light and silvery-white and the softest of all the metals. When we say ‘soft’ we mean soft enough to be cut with a sharp knife. It has a melting point of only 180.54° C and it boils at 1,342°C.
It is one of the alkali metals, which share the trait of being highly reactive, necessitating storage within oil or kerosene (even with water it reacts easily forming hydrogen gas and lithum hydroxide). Lithium is also a good conductor of heat and electricity and subject to rapid corrosion in humid or damp environments, in which it tarnishes easily. In a flame, lithium initially burns with a red colour which develops as the burn intensifies into a bright white hue.
The history books tell us that petalite (lithium aluminium silicate) was discovered in or around 1800 by the Portuguese geologist Jose Bonifacio de Andradre e Silva in a mine in Sweden. It was not until 17 years later, however, that the element was discovered while analysing petalite.
British chemists Sir Humphrey Davy and William Thomas Brande were able to isolate elemental lithium through the electrolysis of lithium chloride, a discovery which heralded succsseful commercial production of lithium metal beginning in the 1920s. Today, the metal is relatively widely distributed but because of its high reactivity it does not occur in elemental form. It is quoted as the 25th most abundant element, on a par with nickel, yet it rarely forms economic concentrations.
Lithium is present in rocks (mainly igneous and especially granites) and brines and although there are plenty of deposits, few are commercially feasible to exploit. Total global resources and reserves of the metal are estimated at between 28 and 35 million tonnes, with the largest reserve base (5.4 million tonnes) being in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni region.
The metal is used to make lithium-ion batteries for a wide range of uses - anything from cameras and mobile phones to hybrid and electric vehicles, mainly because lithium allows more energy to be stored in a smaller space. It is also successfully utilised as a source of lubricant, for welding or soldering and as a flux for industries making ceramics, enamels and glass products, especially when high strength is required. Lithium alloys (with aluminium, copper & manganese in particular) are used for creating high performance aircraft parts.
A lesser-known fact is that lithium hydroxide is used in the air-conditioning systems of specialist operations vehicles - such as spacecraft and submarines.
LITHIUM • is believed to have been one of the few elements which were synthesised in the Big Bang. • is enjoying renewed interest as the anticipated demand for batteries in electric cars has large groups trying to procure supply to meet a surge in demand - 95,000 tonnes of lithium were produced in 2008 which is more than a 100 per cent increase from a decade ago. • salts containing the lithium ion Li+ has neurological benefits in humans (combating both mania and depression) and as such is used as a mood-stabilising drug but not without side effects. • was initially given the name ‘lithos’, from the Greek for ‘stone’, because it was discovered within a mineral. • compounds are used in red fireworks and flares. I S S U E 2 1 • N O V / D E C 2 0 0 9 C S I R O - E X P L O R A T I O N & M I N I N G - M A G A Z I N E.
