¶ … Lithium and I am a glowing soft, silver-white metal (alkali), nicknamed Li and living under atomic address 3. My group, my period, and my block is 1,2,s. When cut open (and I am soft enough to be cut with your classroom scissors), I appear metallic, but contact with moist air soon makes me tarnish. I am commonly obtained from brines and clays; commercially, I am isolated from lithium chloride and potassium chloride. My children were christened helium and beryllium. Of all my family, I am proud to say, I am the lightest metal and the least dense (approximately 0.534g/cm; my standard atomic weight is 6.941(2)g.mol-1) -- but, I warn you, do not mess with me! I am flammable and apt to tear you apart. In fact, I have the highest specific heat capacity of the solid members of my family!
On the other hand, I am good for your nerves too, and help you in a variety of manner: not only to calm those of you who are mentally ill (specifically, depression and bipolar disorder or mania), but I am also used in glass and ceramics, aircraft, and certain types (lithium, of course) batteries. Actually, I also appear in nuclear physics -- thermonuclear weapons, in fact -- but that may not be pleasing to everyone.
My best friend is magnesium. We are soul mates with close chemical resemblances and similar salt makeup. Something else that you need to know about my character: I am composed of two isotopes 6Li and a large mass of 7LI (and my electron configuration is 2:1). Because my characters have low nuclear binding energy, I am less common in the solar system than most of my family, but let that not concern you! It is possible that a small amount of my characteristics are produced in young brown and certain orange stars (not in older stars), and generated by wind, and from the early solar system.
Since I am dangerous, my Creator was very careful in how He dispersed me through the universe, since He, obviously, didn't want to burn you folks up (although you might deserve it from time to time). My presence in seawater, on the other hand, is enormous -- approximately 230 billion tones at a constant concentration of 0.1 to 0.2ppm.
I am also a part of the crust of your earth: a smaller part in igneous rocks, preferring the granites fro my habitation. You can also find me in clay. I am said to be the earth's 25th most abundant element -- and proud of that fact I am!
It was Arfwedson who found me in Sweden in 1817 and his boss, the pharmacist Berzelisu who christened me. You don't know where to find me most often? Go to South America; the Andes chain -- Chile is the best, followed by Argentina. You might find some of me in Afghanistan, but I am not too sure about that. In the United States, you can track me down in Nevada, otherwise I live in Bolivia and China.
Altogether, people trying to hire me estimate that they can grab about 35 million tones of me. This, my calculator tells me, is enough for approximately 4 billion electric cars.
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