Lithium History

Lithium, the third element in the periodic table of elements, was discovered in 1817 by a Swedish scientist named Arfwedson. He had analyzed the content of a mineral called spodumene; the results of the analysis left a sizable percentage of the ore's make-up unaccounted for. Further work resulted in the extraction of a compound with chemical properties suggesting an unknown element was present. Since the new element had been found in chunks of spodumene ore, Arfwedson called it "lithium," from the Greek word for stone.

It was not until 1855 that lithium was prepared as a free metal. In those early years, lithium was little more than a laboratory curiosity. Lithium-bearing minerals were sometimes used as exotic additives to ceramic compositions. Not until World War II were the special properties of lithium compounds fully investigated and exploited. A compact, lightweight source of hydrogen was needed for use in emergency signaling balloons. Lithium hydride was found to be ideal for this purpose; one pound of lithium hydride reacts with seawater to generate 45 cubic feet of hydrogen.

Later, greases containing lithium stearate were formulated and found to retain their lubricating properties at both very high and very low temperatures. For the first time, the same grease could be used for multiple purposes over a wide range of operating conditions. With the advent of rocketry came the search for materials that could withstand the extreme temperatures of high-speed travel through the atmosphere. A ceramic composition containing lithium was developed that expanded very little and resisted cracking during rapid extreme temperature change. This lithium-containing material, "pyroceram," was the forerunner of modern glass-ceramic cookware that resists thermal cracking.

In 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) required large amounts of lithium hydroxide from which the lithium-6 isotope was separated and reserved for use in the production of thermonuclear weapons. For about five years, the government was the largest consumer of lithium. After the AEC contracts expired in 1960, the lithium industry, faced with vast over capacity, sought desperately to develop its small commercial markets. Though not an overnight success, it soon became a firmly established supplier to basic industries such as ceramics, lubrication, aluminum reduction, and pharmaceuticals.

Today, even though lithium products are widely used in households, factories and laboratories, lithium's presence often goes unrecognized. Lithium may be as close to the average person as a medicine chest, a television, a swimming pool, or a calculator. Lithium is found in minerals, clays, and brines located in various parts of the world. High-grade lithium ores and brines are the present sources for all commercial lithium operations. Economical brine sources of lithium were rare until several salars in the Andes Mountains of South America were discovered to contain significant deposits of lithium salts.

Initially the two US producers, FMC (formerly Lithium Company of America) and Chemetall GmbH (formerly Foote Minerals and then Cyprus Foote) purchased lithium minerals or concentrates, and later mined spodumene from their large North Carolina deposits (Johnson, 1958) and converted it into lithium carbonate. Then in 1966 Foote began to recover lithium from their Clayton Valley (Silver Peak), Nevada brine deposit.

This was the first step towards the brine resources, which combined with solar evaporation is much more economical, and thus has allowed the price of lithium carbonate to be considerably lowered and nowadays most of the world’s supply is extracted from various brine deposits.

In 1984 SCL (Sociedad Chilena de Litio, Chemetall Lithium formerly Cyprus Foote.

started lithium carbonate production from brine in the Salar de Atacama (with the final processing being done near Antofgasta), Chile.

In 1995, two important breakthroughs took place in the development of a brine-based resource for lithium. While still mining spodumene from its North Carolina mine, FMC Lithium purchased the Salar del Hombre Muerto, an Argentine salar containing high uniform concentrations of lithium with low levels of other contaminants. Concurrently, FMC perfected and commercialized a selective purification process which extracts lithium chloride from the salar brine in a nearly pure form with minimal processing.

The Salar del Hombre Muerto is located in the high Andes at about 13,200 feet above sea level, in the argentinean. FMC has installed production facilities for both lithium chloride and lithium carbonate from the Salar del Hombre Muerto.

In 1997 SQM (formerly Minsal S.A.) also began to produce lithium carbonate from the Salar de Atacama, and cut the selling price of lithium carbonate roughly in half to gain market share.

As result of the lower lithium carbonate price the Cyprus Foote and FMC spodumene operations were both officially closed by 1998. The other three major producers of lithium ore concentrates, Greenbushes Operations in Australia operated nowadays by Talison Minerals ( formerly owned by Sons of Gwalia) which is the largest high-grade lithium (spodumene) pegmatite deposit, and the other two large producers of lithium concentrates are Tanco in Canada and Bikita in Zimbabwe resisted the lower carbonate prices, especially because of their direct application of the spodumene concentrates to the glass industry. A lot of small mineral production sites in Namibia, Canada China and Russia closed during the late 90´s.

Since 2004 lithium carbonate price started to rise, because of the strong demand principally boosted by the battery application. This forced the actual 3 principal producers ( SQM, Chemetall and FMC) to expand their operations. On the other hand Talisons also increased their output and is selling a big share of its production to plants in China where spodumene is transformed in lithium carbonate.

The interest in lithium is driving new projects such as Salar de Uyuni ( the biggest lithium reserves located in Bolivia) operated by the Bolivian Government, Salar de Rincon( Argentina) recently sold to the Senpient Group and the minerals depostis owned by Galaxy Resources in Australia, Black Pearl Minerals ( re-named to Canada Lithium Corporation) and Nordic Mining in Finland.