Chilean Atacama site imperilled by lithium mining

A battery is a galvanic cell that is used as a source of electrical power for specific applications. Modern batteries exist in a multitude of forms to accommodate various applications, from tiny button batteries such as those that power wristwatches to the very large batteries used to supply backup energy to municipal power grids. Some batteries are designed for single-use applications and cannot be recharged (primary cells), while others are based on conveniently reversible cell reactions that...

Chemical stoichiometry describes the quantitative relationships between reactants and products in chemical reactions.

Ions are atoms or molecules bearing an electrical charge. A cation (a positive ion) forms when a neutral atom loses one or more electrons from its valence shell, and an anion (a negative ion) forms when a neutral atom gains one or more electrons in its valence shell. Compounds composed of ions are called ionic compounds (or salts), and their constituent ions are held together by ionic bonds: electrostatic forces of attraction between oppositely charged cations and anions. 

Ionic radius is the measure used to describe the size of an ion. A cation always has fewer electrons and the same number of protons as the parent atom; it is smaller than the atom from which it is derived. For example, the covalent radius of an aluminum atom (1s22s22p63s23p1) is 118 pm, whereas the ionic radius of an Al3+ (1s22s22p6) is 68 pm. As electrons are removed from the outer valence shell, the remaining core electrons occupying smaller shells experience a greater effective nuclear...

Solubility is the measure of the maximum amount of solute that can be dissolved in a given quantity of solvent at a given temperature and pressure. Solubility is usually measured in molarity (M) or moles per liter (mol/L). A compound is termed soluble if it dissolves in water.

An ionic compound is stable because of the electrostatic attraction between its positive and negative ions. The lattice energy of a compound is a measure of the strength of this attraction. The lattice energy (ΔHlattice) of an ionic compound is defined as the energy required to separate one mole of the solid into its component gaseous ions. For the ionic solid sodium chloride, the lattice energy is the enthalpy change of the process: