Aluminum

Aluminum is a light-weight, silvery metal, familiar to every household in the form of pots and pans, beverage cans, and aluminum foil. It is attractive, nontoxic, corrosion-resistant, non-magnetic, and easy to form, cast, or machine into a variety of shapes. It is one of the most useful metals we have; four million tons of it are produced every year in the United States alone—a production rate that among metals is second only to that of iron.

Pure aluminum is relatively soft and not the strongest of metals, but when melted together with other elements such as copper, manganese, silicon, magnesium, and zinc, it forms alloys with a wide range of useful properties. Aluminum alloys are used in airplanes, highway signs, bridges, storage tanks, and buildings. Aluminum is being used more and more in automobiles because it is only one-third as heavy as steel and therefore decreases fuel consumption.