Lithium Essay

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ike the other alkali metals, lithium has a single valence electron that is easily given up to form a cation. Because of this, it is a good conductor of heat and electricity as well as a highly reactive element, though the least reactive of the alkali metals. Lithium's low reactivity compared to other alkali metals is due to the proximity of its valence electron to its nucleus (the remaining two electrons are in lithium's 1s orbital and are much lower in energy, and therefore they do not participate in chemical bonds).

Lithium metal is soft enough to be cut with a knife. When cut, it possesses a silvery-white color that quickly changes to gray due to oxidation. While it has one of the lowest melting points among all metals (180 °C), it has the highest melting and boiling points of the alkali metals.

Lithium has a very low density of 0.534 g/cm3, comparable with that of pine wood. It is the least dense of all elements that are solids at room temperature, the next lightest solid element (potassium, at 0.862 g/cm3) being more than 60% denser. Furthermore, apart from helium and hydrogen, it is less dense than any liquid element, being only 2/3 as dense as liquid nitrogen (0.808 g/cm3).[note 1][5] Lithium can float on the lightest hydrocarbon oils and is one of only three metals that can float on water, the other two being sodium and potassium.
Lithium floating in oil

Lithium's coefficient of thermal expansion is twice that of aluminium and almost four times that of iron.[6] It has the highest specific heat capacity of any solid element. Lithium is superconductive below 400 μK at standard pressure[7] and at higher temperatures (more than 9 K) at very high pressures (>20 GPa)[8] At temperatures below 70 K, lithium, like sodium, underg...

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...um than they should, and some younger stars have far more. The lack of lithium in older stars is apparently caused by the "mixing" of lithium into the interior of stars, where it is destroyed. Furthermore, lithium is produced in younger stars. Though it transmutes into two atoms of helium due to collision with a proton at temperatures above 2.4 million degrees Celsius (most stars easily attain this temperature in their interiors), lithium is more abundant than predicted in later-generation stars, for causes not yet completely understood.

Though it was one of the three first elements (together with helium and hydrogen) to be synthesized in the Big Bang, lithium, together with beryllium and boron are markedly less abundant than other nearby elements. This is a result of the low temperature necessary to destroy lithium, and a lack of common processes to produce it.[34]

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