Metal Production - Mining, Purification, Reduction, Alloys
metals nature commercial occur
The term metal production refers to all of the processes involved in the conversion of a raw material, such as a metallic ore, to a final form in which the metal can be used for some commercial or industrial purpose. In some instances, metal production involves relatively few steps since the metal already occurs in an elemental form in nature. Such is the case with gold, silver, platinum, and other so-called noble metals. These metals normally occur in nature uncombined with other elements and can therefore be put to some commercial use with comparatively little additional treatment.
In the majority of cases, however, metals occur in nature as compounds, such as the oxide or the sulfide, and must first be converted to their elemental state. They may then be treated in a wide variety of ways in order to make them usable for specific practical applications.
Additional Topics
The first step in metal production always involves some form of mining. Mining refers to the process of removing the metal in its free or combined state from the Earth's surface. The two most common forms of mining are surface and subsurface mining. In the former case, the metal or its ore can be removed from the upper few meters of the Earth's surface. Much of the world's cop…
In most cases, metals and their ores occur in the ground as part of complex mixtures that also contain rocks, sand, clay, silt and other impurities. The first step in producing the metal for commercial use, therefore, is to separate the ore from waste materials with which it occurs. The term ore is used to describe a compound of a metal that contains enough of that metal to make it economically pr…
Metals always occur in their oxidized state in ores, often as the oxide or sulfide of the metal. In order to convert an ore to its elemental state, therefore, it must be reduced. Reduction is a chemical reaction that is the opposite of oxidation. Metals can be reduced in a variety of different ways. With ores of iron, for example, reduction can be accomplished by reacting oxides of iron with carbo…
Pure metals themselves are often not satisfactory for many practical applications. For example, pure gold is too soft for most uses and is combined with other metals to form harder, more resistant mixtures. Mixtures that contain two or more metals are known as alloys. Perhaps the best known and most widely used of all alloys is steel. The term steel refers to a number of different substances that …
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Metal Production
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