Lithium Lithium Lithium (from ) is a chemical element with symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly reactive and flammable, and is stored in mineral oil. When cut, it exhibits a metallic luster, but moist air corrodes it quickly to a dull silvery gray, then black tarnish. It never occurs freely in nature, but only in (usually ionic) compounds, such as pegmatitic minerals which were once the main source of lithium. Due to its solubility
Metallic bonding the metallic bonding is neither intra- nor intermolecular. 'Nonmolecular' would perhaps be a better term. Metallic bonding is mostly non-polar, because even in alloys there is little difference among the electronegativities of the atoms participating in the bonding interaction (and, in pure elemental metals, none at all). Thus, metallic bonding is an extremely delocalized communal form of covalent bonding. In a sense, metallic bonding is not a 'new' type of bonding at all, therefore, and it describes the bonding only as present in a "chunk" of condensed matter, be it crystalline solid, liquid, or even glass. Metallic vapors by contrast