Lithium on the periodic table

Lithium on the periodic table is a chemical element among the alkali metals, and is the least dense solid element.

Alkali metal is a term that refers to six elements: lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs), and francium (Fr). They all form singly charged positive ions, and are extremely reactive. For example, they react violently with water, forming hydroxides and releasing hydrogen gas and heat.

What is the periodic table?

It is used extensively within chemistry because it provides such a useful framework to classify, systematize and compare the many different forms of chemical behavior. The table has also found wide application in physics, biology, engineering, and industry.

A group, is a vertical column in the periodic table of the elements.

Groups are considered the most important method of classifying the elements. In some groups, the elements have very similar properties and exhibit a clear trend in properties down the group — these groups tend to be given trivial (unsystematic) names, e.g. the alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, halogens and noble gases. Some other groups in the periodic table display fewer similarities and/or vertical trends (for example Groups 14 and 15), and these have no trivial names and are referred to simply by their group numbers.

A period is a horizontal row in the periodic table of the elements.

Click to see lithium on the Periodic Table. (This is a clickable diagram - as well as seeing lithium in context on the periodic table, you can click Li to discover more. A great resource from Los Alamos National Laboratory's Chemistry Division.)

The basics

- Symbol: Li

- Atomic number: 3

- Atomic weight: [6.941 (2)]

- CAS Registry ID: 7439-93-2

- Group number: 1

- Group name: Alkali metal

- Period number: 2

- Block: s-block

Even more detail on lithium on the periodic table.

What does it all mean?

- Symbol: a chemical symbol generally comes from its latin name.It is an abbreviation or short representation of the name of a chemical element. Natural elements all have symbols of one or two letters; some man-made elements have temporary symbols of three letters. As well as being are listed in the periodic table, chemical symbols are used as shorthand and in chemical equations.

- Atomic number: a characteristic property of an element, equal to the number of protons in the nucleus.

- Atomic weight: actually the relative atomic mass - the ratio of the average mass per atom of the naturally occurring form of an element to 1/12 of the mass of nuclide.

- CAS Registry ID: unique numerical identifiers for chemical compounds, polymers, biological sequences, mixtures and alloys. The American Chemical Society assigns these to every chemical in order to make database searches more convenient, as chemicals often have many names. As of April 22, 2007, there were 31,400,936 organic and inorganic substances in the registry. Around 50,000 new numbers are added each week.

- Group number: Number given to the alkali metals that make up the first 6 elements on the periodic table.

- Group name: The alkali metals are a series of elements comprising lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and francium. The alkali metals provide one of the best examples of group trends in properties in the periodic table, with well characterized homologous behavior down the group. The alkali metals are all highly reactive and are rarely found in elemental form in nature.

- Period number: periods are horizontal rows in the periodic table. Each period begins with an alkali metal and ends with a noble gas.

- Block: s-block of the periodic table consists of the first two groups: the alkali metals and alkaline earth metals, plus hydrogen and helium. These elements are distinguished by the property that in the atomic ground state, the highest-energy electron is in an s-orbital. Except in hydrogen and helium, these electrons are very easily lost to form positive ions.

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