Lithium

History
Content created by REAL intelligence since 2016


Discovery


The element was discovered by the Swedish mineralogist Johan August Arfwedson in 1818, in the mineral petalite LiAl(Si2O5)2. The German chemists Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Augustus Matthiessen were the first to isolate lithium, this was in 1855 [15].

Origin of name


From the Latin word lithos, meaning stone, as lithium was believed to exist only in minerals [15].