Posts

Showing posts from July, 2020

Aluminium Metal - The Highly Conductive Property

Image
Aluminium metal is the most abundant in the earth's crust but found only in combination, chiefly as an ore called bauxite. It also occurs in gemstones such as topaz, garnet, ruby and sapphire. It is found combined in over 270 different minerals. The metal is highly conductive and has great thermal properties and these properties are used for the various needs of the industries. Aluminium is silvery-white in colour. The metal is used in various industries like building and construction, power transmission lines, photoengraving plates, cookware and other consumer goods, tubes for ointments and pastes. Global production of aluminium in the year 2005 was 31.9 million tonnes. This comes after iron consumption that was 837.5 million tonnes in the same year. Pure aluminium has a low tensile strength, but if they are processed with proper heat and mechanics, they can be the strongest metal. Alloys formed with copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese and silicon are used in various industries. Al...

Aluminium: Properties and Uses

Image
A common household and industrial metal, aluminium is a highly versatile and cost-effective material. What is it exactly? The compound aluminum is produced from Bauxite, which is a formless clayey rock mainly found in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the globe, such as Australia, Jamaica, Brazil, India, Surinam, and Guinea. Alumina, otherwise known as A1203, or Aluminium Oxide, is produced from extracted ore which resembles a floury white sand. In order to extract alumina from Bauxite (which consist of earth silicon, titanium dioxide, ferrous oxide, as well as the 40-60% alumina), the ore needs to be heated with caustic soda in an autoclave. When cooled, a red mud like solid residue is separated from its liquid and the Aluminium hydroxide is extracted. Is your head hurting yet?! The final production stage is the reduction of aluminium through the "Hall-Heroult" process. It is a process which dissolves alumina in a molten cryolite (sodium hexafluoroaluminate) salt bath and e...