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50 free Lithium trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This lithium trivia quiz covers the third element on the periodic table and the metal the 21st century runs on. The easy questions are the ones anyone can attempt: the symbol, the atomic number, why it is stored under oil, what colour it burns and the batteries in every phone and electric car. From there the set moves through the science: the least dense of all metals, one of three that float on water, the highest specific heat of any solid, its Big Bang origins and the cosmological lithium problem, its rarity in the Solar System and its two stable isotopes. The harder end is for chemists and history buffs: the Swedish mine and Berzelius's laboratory where it was found in 1817, William Brande's first isolation, Cockcroft and Walton splitting the atom with it in 1932, lithium deuteride and the Castle Bravo runaway, John Cade's guinea pigs and the 1949 paper that made it a psychiatric drug, the 7 Up recipe, Salar de Uyuni and the Lithium Triangle, Greenbushes and the 2019 Nobel Prize for the lithium-ion battery. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for lithium, its uses, its mines and its history before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Periodic Table, Chemistry and Iron quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the chemical symbol for lithium?
Li
Its atomic number is 3.
Q 02What is lithium's atomic number?
3
Only hydrogen and helium are lighter.
Q 03The name lithium comes from the Greek word for what?
Stone
Berzelius chose it because the element was found in a solid mineral, unlike potassium (plant ash) or sodium (animal blood).
Q 04Lithium holds which record among all metals under standard conditions?
Least dense
It is also the least dense solid element.
Q 05Lithium is one of only three metals that can float on water. What are the other two?
Sodium and potassium
It can even float on the lightest hydrocarbon oils.
Q 06Why must lithium be stored in a vacuum, inert gas or a liquid like mineral oil?
It is highly reactive and flammable
In air it quickly tarnishes to dull grey and then black.
Q 07Which group of the periodic table is nicknamed the lithium family?
The alkali metals
Sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and francium are its siblings.
Q 08Where does lithium rank for reactivity within its own periodic-table group?
The least reactive of all
Its single valence electron sits close to the nucleus.
Q 09What is lithium's melting point, the highest of any alkali metal?
180.5 °C
Its boiling point of 1,342 °C is also the highest in the group.
Q 10Lithium has the highest value of which property among all solids, making it useful in coolants?
Mass specific heat capacity
It is 3.58 kilojoules per kilogram-kelvin.
Q 11What colour do lithium salts give to a flame?
Bright red
Christian Gmelin first observed the effect in 1818; the compounds are used in red fireworks.
Q 12Who detected the new element lithium in 1817 while analysing petalite ore in Berzelius's laboratory?
Johan August Arfwedson
He later found the same element in spodumene and lepidolite but could not isolate it.
Q 13On which Swedish island was petalite, the mineral in which lithium was found, discovered in 1800?
Utö
The discoverer was Brazilian chemist and statesman José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva.
Q 21Which nuclear test's runaway yield came from a poorly understood lithium-7 reaction producing tritium?
Castle Bravo
Both lithium-6 and lithium-7 produce tritium when bombarded by neutrons.
Q 22Roughly what share of the world's lithium went into lithium-ion batteries in 2026?
88%
Ceramics and glass, the second-largest use, take about 4 percent.
Q 23Which three scientists shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the lithium-ion battery?
Whittingham, Goodenough and Yoshino
Yoshino's 1985 prototype used a carbon anode instead of lithium metal.
Q 14Who first isolated pure lithium in 1821, by electrolysis of lithium oxide?
William Thomas Brande
He used the same method Davy had employed to isolate potassium and sodium.
Q 15Which German company began commercial lithium production in 1923?
Metallgesellschaft AG
It electrolysed a molten mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride.
Q 16How many stable isotopes does lithium have?
Two
Their nuclei have among the lowest binding energies per nucleon of any stable nuclide.
Q 17Lithium-7 was created in which process very early in the universe's history?
Big Bang nucleosynthesis
Measured amounts don't match the model, an issue called the cosmological lithium problem.
Q 18Astronomers use a 'lithium test' to tell brown dwarfs apart from what?
Red dwarf stars
Lithium survives in cooler brown dwarfs but is destroyed in hotter red dwarfs.
Q 19Which two physicists produced the first fully human-made nuclear reaction in 1932, bombarding lithium with protons?
Cockcroft and Walton
The lithium-7 became beryllium-8, which instantly split into two alpha particles: 'splitting the atom'.
Q 20Which compound of element 3 serves as fusion fuel in staged thermonuclear weapons?
The deuteride
An unexpected reaction in it caused the runaway yield of a famous 1954 test.
Q 24Which company first commercialised the lithium-ion battery, in 1991?
Sony
The team was led by Yoshio Nishi with Asahi Kasei.
Q 25Which cathode material did John Goodenough introduce in 1980?
Lithium cobalt oxide
Whittingham's earlier titanium disulfide design was never commercialised because of safety problems.
Q 26In what year did lithium-ion batteries become the dominant use of lithium?
2007
Before that, glass and aluminium smelting dominated the market.
Q 27Which country was estimated in 2020 to have the largest lithium reserves?
Chile
Australia had the highest annual production.
Q 28Which three countries form the Lithium Triangle?
Argentina, Bolivia and Chile
Its vertices are the salt flats of Uyuni, Atacama and Hombre Muerto.
Q 29What is the Salar de Uyuni?
The world's largest salt flat
It covers about 10,582 square kilometres of Bolivia at 3,656 metres altitude.
Q 30After rain, the Salar de Uyuni becomes the world's largest what?
Mirror
The reflection stretches 129 kilometres across.