Lithium: My Irreplaceable Element
KÅRK NO. 41
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Gabriella Gormley Det Kongelige Akademi Crafts in Glass and Ceramics Recently, I took the decision to go back on to a full dose of lithium as a treatment for my bipolar. But this decision has not been without difficulties. In the following lines and paragraphs I will outline a story of the complexities of this material I have come to know personally and creatively. The story I will tell is three fold, starting with the global context of lithium as a commodity central to battery production, moving to its role in a medical context, and coming finally to lithium’s place in the world of ceramics and glass. It reflects my admittedly unique relationship with lithium across these diverse contexts, but it has relevance for us all as we experience the increasing electrification of our lives in light of what is being referred to as the ‘green industrial revolution’.1 Lithium underpins this transition and as a result we are living in the midst of what is known as the ‘white gold rush’2 in search of this precious metal. This article emphasises the need for us all to question our relationship with a material that has become more crucial and complex than ever. Lithium is the lightest known metal, and offers something that not many other materials can rival. Made up of only three electrons, it can hold charge without demanding much space. And it is this potential for energy density has gained lithium its title as a ‘green material’, seeing as it is a crucial component of the modern battery that we depend on for our electric future. Lithium might support a transition away from fossil fuels, but we should not be surprised to learn that it’s not as simple as the label. Despite the abundance of lithium in our seas3, most of the world’s lithium comes from the Atacama Desert, and particularly the salt flats located in the east of Chile. This desert is the driest desert on earth4 and the process by which lithium is extracted is extremely water dependent. With an alarming 2 million litres of water being required for every one tonne of lithium produced.5 This means that groundwater from deep below the surface is pumped into evaporation ponds where the water eventually becomes vapour and moves away from the land, disrupting a balanced local ecosystem that has been dutifully respected by the indigenous people of the desert for years. Our heavy dependency on coal and oil is under scrutiny, and rightly so, but the answer can not and does not lie in one material solution. The exploitation of the land and the disruption of fine equilibriums was wrong then and it is wrong now, and lithium is the newest target under the guise of noble environmental aims. Part of what drives these reckless practices is the soar-
ing market prices, sparked by increased demand. With, for example, the average price for lithium carbonate in the U.S. almost doubling in one year to $17,000 per ton in 2021.6 Lithium deposits represent such commercial opportunities that they, like oil fields before them, are central to a nation’s geopolitical strategies. An example of current relevance can be seen in the war in Ukraine. Analysis of recent Russian movements are reportedly connected to the potential for securing access to large natural deposits of lithium oxide that are as yet un-mined.7 Outside of the extreme example of international conflict are further examples of nation states re-examining their role in lithium production. In England, old tin mines in Cornwall are being reopened in search of lithium, with the explicit claim to be doing so ‘sustainably’.8 But recent stories about China setting up a mine in the base of the Himalayas9 and disputes in Portugal over the potential demolition of landscapes10 show the breadth of this pursuit. Despite the largest demand on lithium coming from the push towards electrification, the dependency stretches back further. In 1949, lithium as a treatment for bipolar disorder was rediscovered by John Cade, having been used prior to this in the late 1800s in Denmark, sparking a revival in the interest of this metal as a medicine. Mystery still surrounds the exact workings of lithium on the brain, however its results are unquestionable, and as a user I can vouch for this. Lithium, often administered in the form of the compound lithium citrate or lithium carbonate, is the only psychiatric treatment that is not synthesised in a lab. This connection to natural sources explains why lithium and its health benefits were known long before 1949, with spa towns such as Baden-Baden (Germany) and Lithia Springs (Georgia) being built up around natural springs that contained high percentages of the mineral. What is more, it has been found that in places such as this, where the percentage of lithium salts in the drinking water are higher, there has been less reported suicide.11 This ability for lifting mood was most famously capitalised on with the popular drink ‘7up’, which, in its original formula, was made with lithium citrate dissolved in the drink. Aside from lithium’s internal place in (some of) our lives playing a role of stabiliser, the identity it possesses in the ceramics and glass industry is quite the opposite. In the presence of high temperatures, upwards of 1000 degrees, lithium has an identity in the ceramic world as a wild flux ingredient. When dominant in glaze recipes, it has the ten-