Lithium

In 1817, an aging Swedish chemist was pouring over his work on a late afternoon in Stockholm, Sweden. He was analyzing a strange ore named Petalite that had been procured from an island off the coast of Sweden called Utö. The ore Petalite (which is now recognized to be LiAl(Si2O5)2) had been discovered by a Brazilian scientist, José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva towards …

…greases and lubricants due to its high resistance to water and its usefulness at extremely high and low temperatures. Lithium urate is used in the medical treatment of gout, since it is one of the few soluble salts of uric acid. In addition, Lithium is used as an alloy with aluminum, manganese, and cadmium to create high-performance materials for spacecrafts, to manufacture strong railroad car bearings in Europe, as an ingredient in various nuclear applications.