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
Bioabsorbable metallic glass Bioabsorbable metallic glass Bioresorbable (or bioabsorbable) metallic glass is a type of amorphous metal, which is based on the "Mg-Zn-Ca ternary system". Containing only elements which already exist inside the human body, namely Mg, Zn and Ca, these amorphous alloys are a special type of biodegradable metal. The first reported metallic glass was an alloy (AuSi) produced at Caltech by W. Klement (Jr.), Willens and Duwez in 1960. This and other early glass-forming alloys had to be cooled extremely rapidly (in the order of one mega-kelvin per second, 10 K/s) to avoid crystallization. An important consequence of this was that