‘Exploring the elements: Aluminum’
‘Exploring the elements: Aluminum’ by Anita Louise McCormick
1. Aluminum is a very light-weight metal. It is a silvery bluish-white colour. It has the advantage of not rusting or corroding. It is strong and pliable. It can be rolled into very thin sheets. It is also a easy metal to recycle, which saves the cost of mining and refining it.
2. Some parts in aeroplanes, automobiles, and buses are now made of aluminum rather than steel because lighter vehicles use less fuel.
3. Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the earth’s crust, after oxygen and silicon, making up about 8.2 percent of it. It is always found combined with other elements.
4. The most important source of aluminum is a kind of rock called bauxite. It is a mixture of minerals (gibbsite, diaspore, and boehmite) that contain aluminum, oxygen and water. The largest amount of bauxite is found in Australia, but substantial amounts are also found in Brazil, Guinea, and Jamaica.
5. Aluminum is harder than your fingernail and could scratch it. However, it is softer than a penny and could, in turn, be scratched by it. By mixing aluminum with other metals, such as copper or magnesium, it can be made as hard as steel.
6. Aluminum, along with copper and silver, is one of only three metals that are used to make electrical conduction wires. Its light weight makes it ideal for use in overhead power cables.
7. Aluminum reflects nearly nine-tenths of the heat that reaches it. It is often used in housing insulation and as roofing material. It can be used to direct heat inside the house, or to reflect heat away from the house to keep it cool.
8. A lot of aluminum sulfate is used in the paper industry. When making printing paper, materials such as clay and rosin (a tree resin) are added to improve the paper’s ability to hold ink. Aluminum sulfate is needed to attach the clay and rosin to the paper fibres.
9. Obtaining aluminum through recycling instead of through the refinement of aluminum ore saves a considerable amount of energy and money. Aluminum scrap needs only to be melted down before it can be reused. Recycling uses about one-twentieth of the energy it took to produce the aluminum in the first place. Fewer pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide are released.
Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/rodolphe-paul-wytsman/rocher-fleurifinchal-mad%C3%A8re-xpfdGmhSr_2yWrMluxGjag2
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