Abstract At the end of the 18th century, with the development of analytical chemistry, scientists successively studied the newly discovered mineral “petalite”. In the early of the 19th century, Swedish chemist Arfwedson found that the mineral contained a fixed component with unknown properties. He was aware of the existence of a new element and put forward a hypothesis about lithium. In 1818, British chemist David prepared metal lithium by electrolysis for the first time, and the lithium hypothesis was confirmed. In the early of 20th century, the discovery of lithium isotopes made people have a new understanding of the concept of lithium. In short, with the continuous development of scientific thoughts and methods, the connotation of the concept of lithium is also developing and changing.
YAN Bing, YUAN Zhen-Dong, WANG Fei-Fei. From Petalite to Lithium Isotope: Discovery of Lithium and Development of Its Concept[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2023, 44(16): 125-129.