C.1.9 - describe the main properties and uses of aluminum and its alloys.
S uppose you were to design the perfect hardware that you will probably happen to want it to be plentiful and relatively cheap, strong and lightweight, easy to combine with other materials, heat resistant and corrosion, and a good conductor of electricity in short, you'd probably come up with a material such as aluminum spelled aluminum in some countries and is also the official spelling IUPAC.
It is the most common metal in the earth's crust, the third most abundant chemical element on our planet as oxygen and silicon exist in large quantities, and the second most popular metal to do things after the steel iron We all see and use aluminum every day without even thinking about disposable drinks cans are made from and therefore a baking sheet, you can find this ghostly gray-white metal in some pretty amazing places, engines reaction in aircraft hulls to hi-tech warships which makes aluminum such a useful material brilliantly Leave a closer look.
Photo high speed US Navy Swift HSV 2 is a vessel hull aluminum catamaran wave piercing the two teeth on the bow end face forward through the waves to a higher speed The lightweight aluminum hull means that the vessel weighs less, so it can move faster and operate closer to shore in just 3 to 7 m 12 feet of water photo by Michelle R Hammond courtesy of the US Navy.
Aluminum is soft, lightweight, fire-resistant and heat-resistant, easy to work in new forms, and able to conduct electricity very efficiently and reflects light and heat and it doesn t rust It reacts easily with other chemical elements, especially oxygen, and easily form an outer layer of aluminum oxide if you leave it in the air that we call the physical and chemical properties of these things aluminum.
Photo experimental aluminum car Ford Sable produced there more than 20 years in 1995 was 180 kg 400 pounds lighter than a comparable car -bodied steel and more energy efficient Today's economy fuel becomes increasingly important cars in aluminum bodied are becoming much more common especially in the high-end, luxury market the aluminum content of a typical car is expected to double by 2025, according to the Association of aluminum Photo courtesy of the US Department of energy DOE.
Aluminum is really in its own when you combine it with other metals to make alloys of aluminum alloy is a metal joint and other elements to make a new material with improved properties, may be greater or it may melt at a higher temperature Some of the metals commonly used to fabricate alloys of aluminum include boron, lithium, copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon, tin and zinc you mix aluminum with one or more of them depending on the task you are trying to do.
Aluminum can be combined with other materials in a manner quite different materials in the composite hybrid materials made from two or more materials which retain their separate identity without chemically combining, mixing, or dissolving Thus for example, aluminum may act as the base material matrix in this s called a metal matrix composite MMC reinforced with silicon carbide particles to make a strong, rigid, lightweight material in suitable for high variety of aerospace applications, electronics and automotive and crucially better than aluminum alone.
aluminum consumption in graphic aircraft in the US, boats, trucks and cars is by far the largest single use for the metal and its alloys Source US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries Aluminum January 2017.
Pure aluminum is very soft If you want something stronger, but still light, resistant and able to withstand high temperatures in a plane or car engine you mix aluminum and copper for packaging food, you do not need anything like the same strength, but you need a material that is easy to shape and seal you get these qualities aluminum alloy with magnesium Suppose you want to transport the electricity over long distances from power plants to homes and factories can use copper, which is usually the best door-conductor of electricity, but it is heavy and expensive aluminum could be an option, but it didnt carry electricity easily if a solution is to make power cables of aluminum alloyed with boron, which conducts electricity nearly as well as copper, but is a great deal lighter and less drooping in hot weather in general, the aluminum alloys contain 90 to 99 percent aluminum.
Photo Ready for recycling These mats stuck aluminum cans are called biscuits They are ready to melt and recycle according to the Aluminum Association nearly 70 percent of the aluminum ever mined is still in use today, thanks to effective recycling programs is much cheaper and more environmentally friendly to recycle the aluminum used to dig bauxite from the ground and recycling process saves about 95 percent of energy that would be required for new aluminum Photo courtesy of the US Air Force.
Aluminum reacts with oxygen so easily that you will naturally find it in its pure form, instead of aluminum compounds exist in huge quantities in the crust as raw rock material from bauxite ore called This is the common name for hydrated alumina, generally made of about two thirds chemical formula substance of aluminum oxide Al 2 O 3 with one third of the water molecules H 2 O locked in its crystalline structure Depending on where on the earth he's found, bauxite also contains a range of different impurities such as iron oxide, silicon oxide and titanium oxide the world currently has about 55 75 billion tons of bauxite reserves enough to meet demand in the future according to summaries of mineral raw materials of the US Geological Survey, 2017.
If you want to turn bauxite into aluminum to do useful things like boxes, foil cooking and space rockets you got to get rid of impurities and water and divide the aluminum atoms of oxygen they re locked on doing so, to aluminum is in fact a multi-step process.
First, you dig bauxite from the ground, crush up, dry if it contains too much water, purify and simply let the aluminum oxide then using an electric technique called electrolysis to split it in aluminum and oxygen Electrolysis is the opposite to what is happening inside of a battery in a battery, there are two different metal connections inserted in a chemical compound and complete a circuit with each other to generate electricity in electrolysis, you pass electricity through two metal connections, in a chemical compound, which then splits progressively out of its atoms once separated, pure aluminum is cast into blocks known as ingots, which can be worked or molded or used as raw material for the manufacture of aluminum alloys.
Manufacture of usable aluminum, polished rocky bauxite lumps you dug from the ground is a long, dirty, very energy intensive that the reason why the aluminum industry is so keen on things like recycling used beverage cans is much faster, cheaper, and easier to melt these down and reuse of treating bauxite it is also much better for the environment because it saves a enormous amount of energy.
Why graphic Recycling aluminum is logical The amount of energy required to recycle the metal for reuse orange bars is a fraction of what it takes to produce the metal blank in the first place the blue bars, but the difference is much greater for the center for aluminum or steel left to right or copper because it is so difficult to extract and refine aluminum first data source Table 7 11 l ' embodied energy of the materials selected in the energy and carbon emissions by Nicola Terry ITU Cambridge, 2011 from data of the carbon inventory and energy ICE by the sustainable energy research team University of Bath.
Photo Construction of an aluminum boat This aluminum boat at high speed, known as the Craft-experimental name Littoral Surface LSC-X or X-Craft, shown here during construction in Freeland, Washington Photo courtesy of Jesse Praino US Navy.
Who discovered aluminum, here is how and when the story as it happened.
1746 German chemist Andreas Marggraf 1709 1782 INCLUDES alum natural aluminum compound used for textile dying from ancient times contained an unknown metal is aluminum, of course, but he did not know.
1809 English chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1778 1 829 names this metal alumium and later aluminum, but is unable to separate.
1825 Danish chemist and electrical pioneer Hans Christian Ersted 1777 1851 transforms aluminum oxide by aluminum chloride and then used to transform potassium chloride pure aluminum Unfortunately, it can not be repeated a second time round.
1827 German chemist Friedrich W hler 1800 1882 also sends a small amount of aluminum by heating the aluminum oxide with a potassium metal.
1855 French chemist Henri St. Clair Deville 1818 1881 used to separate sodium aluminum As sodium is cheaper and easier to obtain as potassium, Deville is able to produce sufficiently more aluminum to an ingot It puts this presentation at a public exhibition in Paris, the new method of France Deville means the beginning of aluminum to become more widely available and the price begins to fall.
1886 working independently, the American team of Charles Martin Hall in 1863, 1914, and his sister Julia Brainerd room 1859 1925 and the French Paul-Louis-Toussaint H ROULT 1863 1914 discovered modern aluminum oxide separation method with electrolysis to pure aluminum Their very effective technique, known as the hall-H Roult process is still used to produce most of the aluminum world today.
1888 Austrian chemist Karl Bayer in 1847 in 1904 found a cheaper way to turn bauxite into alumina raw material necessary for the process of Roult Hall-H Together, the Bayer process and Hall-H ROULT significantly reduce the price of aluminum, allowing the metal to be used in much larger quantities.
1925 American Society Chemical officially changed the name of aluminum to aluminum in the United States.
Coors in 1959 produced the first all aluminum beverage can.
1975 Daniel Cudzik invented the ring-pull tab stay on beverage cans.
1990 The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry IUPAC officially adopts aluminum as its spelling.
Graphic Global production of aluminum in 2016 Although aluminum is produced in many countries, China now accounts for more than half of production foundry of world production in the United States decreased by almost half in 2016, to its lowest level since 1951 Source US Geological Survey, Summary of aluminum minerals in January 2017.
8 of the outer crust of the earth by weight is made of aluminum.
An aluminum block weighs one third to a steel block of the same size.
The aluminum foil is typically less than 15 mm 0 0 0 060 thickness.
Pure aluminum rapidly reacts with the air to form a protective layer against corrosion of aluminum oxide.
Many kitchen utensils, pots and tools are aluminum.
Packaging makes up about a fifth of all aluminum used in the United States.
It takes about 2 to 3 kg aluminum ore bauxite to just 1 kg of pure aluminum metal.
commercial aluminum ingots are huge and weigh about 16 tons.
It takes more than 20 times less energy to manufacture pure aluminum from recycled as bauxite cans.
Exposure to aluminum is usually not harmful, but exposure to high levels can be Source US Department of Health Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
840 million tons of aluminum is 1 48 billion was produced in the US in 2016, s significantly down over 1 71 million metric tons of aluminum worth 3 94 billion US products in 2014 Source Geological Survey Yearbook 2014 minerals and mineral Commodity Summaries, 2017.
67 aluminum beverage cans in the US were recycled in 2012 Source Aluminum Association Inc., October 2013 In general, aluminum cans are made from recycled metal 70 Source The Aluminum Association, 2016.
Aluminum has been produced in 41 countries in 2014, of which two thirds from four countries of China, Russia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates Source US Geological Survey, 2014 Minerals Yearbook.
In 2015, China produced more than half of the world aluminum about 31,000 tons, and nearly 40 times more than the United States Geological Survey Source US, summaries mineral raw materials, in January 2017.
aluminum employed is in the group III of the periodic table 13, which means that it loses three electrons to form positive ions, it has a valence of 3 As it is near the top of the table, its atoms are relatively small compared to lower the table elements such as lead.
atomic number 13, an aluminum atom contains 13 protons, 13 electrons, and 14 neutrons.
The Association's main business organization aluminum with much useful information on aluminum.
The International Aluminum Institute helpful Statistics Production statistics in the world, history and publications.
USGS Aluminum Reliable statistics on US production and global aluminum to the US Geological Survey.
Alcoa website of a leading producer of aluminum; includes some general information on aluminum products, markets and environmental impacts.
Properties of aluminum and physical metallurgy by John E Hatch American Society for Metals, 1984 A classic guide as to the physical nature of the aluminum and its various applications.
Aluminum Manual Published by George E Totten and D Scott MacKenzie M Dekker, 2003 Two volumes covering the properties, metallurgy, production of alloys and manufacturing.
Aluminum Hasan Heather Rosen, 2007 A simple 48 pages covering the history of the aluminum, chemical and physical properties, compounds, production and uses.
Aluminum components by John Farndon Benchmark Books Marshall Cavendish, 2001 A simple outline, solid, 48 pages for readers 9-12 years.
Steel industry feel the stress that automakers are turning to aluminum by The New York Jaclyn Trop times February 24, 2014 Despite its advantage in price, steel is the feeling pinch of aluminum as automakers try to build fuel-efficient vehicles lighter and more.
green line on aluminum in Iceland by Nick Higham BBC News November 1, 2009 2 minute video Reasons why environmentalists are upset by the cast aluminum hunger energy in Iceland.
Power drawn by Susan Demuth Guardian November 29, 2003, an article describing the opposition to the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric development.
Bjork fool despises Map foundry Iceland by Alex Kirby BBC News, January 2, 2003, an article describing the opposition to the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric development.
Antiques masses Metal, Now Valued by Wendy Moonan The New York Times, March 1, 2002 A fascinating introduction to the use of aluminum in jewelry, art and antiques.
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Introduction properties aluminum manufacture and uses, aluminum, introduction, properties, uses.
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