In 1859, some doctors recommended a therapy with lithium salts for a number of ailments, including gout, urinary calculi, rheumatism, mania, depression, and headache.

[10] This finding led to lithium carbonate's use as a psychiatric medication to treat mania, the elevated phase of bipolar disorder.

[8] According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 300–600 mg of lithium carbonate taken two to three times daily is typical for maintenance of bipolar I disorder in adults,[8] where the exact dose given varies depending on factors such as the patient's serum lithium concentrations, which must be closely monitored by a physician to avoid lithium toxicity and potential kidney damage (or even kidney failure) from lithium-induced nephrogenic diabetes insipidus.

In contrast to the elemental ions sodium, potassium, and calcium, there is no known cellular mechanism specifically dedicated to regulating intracellular lithium.

Extended use of lithium to treat mental disorders has been known to lead to acquired nephrogenic diabetes insipidus.

[12] The medullary interstitium of the collecting duct system naturally has a high sodium concentration and attempts to maintain it.

There is no known mechanism for cells to distinguish lithium ions from sodium ions, so damage to the kidney's nephrons may occur if lithium concentrations become too high as a result of dehydration, hyponatremia, an unusually low sodium diet, or certain drugs.

Its apparent solubility increases 10-fold under a mild pressure of carbon dioxide; this effect is due to the formation of the metastable lithium bicarbonate, which is more soluble:[9][19] The extraction of lithium carbonate at high pressures of CO2 and its precipitation upon depressurizing is the basis of the Quebec process.

[22][23] The process pumps lithium rich brine from below ground into shallow pans for evaporation.

The brine contains many different dissolved ions, and as their concentration increases, salts precipitate out of solution and sink.

There, boron and magnesium are removed (typically residual boron is removed by solvent extraction and/or ion exchange and magnesium by raising the pH above 10 with sodium hydroxide)[24] then in the final step, by addition of sodium carbonate, the desired lithium carbonate is precipitated out, separated, and processed.

[28] The brine of United Downs Deep Geothermal Power project near Redruth is claimed by Cornish Lithium to be valuable due to its high lithium concentration (220 mg/L) with low magnesium (<5 mg/L) and total dissolved solids content of <29g/L,[29] and a flow rate of 40-60l/s.

In recent years mining companies have begun exploration of lithium projects throughout North America, South America and Australia to identify economic deposits that can potentially bring new supplies of lithium carbonate online to meet the growing demand for the product.

[32] In 2020 Tesla Motors announced a revolutionary process to extract lithium from clay in Nevada using only salt and no acid.

[33] A few small companies are recycling spent batteries, focusing on recovering copper and cobalt.