>> It's definitely something you don't want to ignite, you can't
>> even put it out with water because lithium reacts with
>> water - not as bad as sodium, but bad enough.
>
> If it was Li, would humidity hydrate it over a period and make
> it safe ?

Pure Lithium will react with high humidity and spontaneously ignite.
So the pure stuff is usually stored in oil, and held down under the
oil by a weight of some kind  (because lithium will float)

Lithium doesn't stay pure very long, it reacts with just about
everything and oxidizes in a matter of minutes to normal air
exposure. Once it has reacted with air, nitrogen, oxygen, whatever
it is harmless.
BUT, if you heat it up (like from a soldering iron) it melts and
becomes highly reactive again. Since it is an alklai metal - it
definitely doesn't react well to the acidity of solder flux and
will ignite when in contact with it.

To remove the stuff that leaks out of Lithium batteries, I usually
do repeated alcohol washes and scrub out as much of it as I can
before soldering near it.
And even after the washes, if I have to solder near a Lithium spill
I wear glass safety glasses, welding gloves, and a long sleeve shirt.
The stuff feels like molten solder when it lands on you while it's
still burning. It's not likely to lit anything on fire, but you
will probably drop your soldering iron in your lap and get a worse
burn from that - in a place you don't really want to be burned.

So the final point is, remove as much of the lithium junk from
the board as possible before soldering, be ready for the popping
noise and sparks, and where long sleeves.
-- 
Cris Wilson
Information Resource Consultant
College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities
Clemson University
cris@clemson.edu
Report problems to: aah_computers@clemson.edu


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