Metals surround us always and everywhere. Today it is an integral part of many things that we use daily. It is enough just to glance at the room in which you are in order to understand that this is really so.
From school, we know that all these minerals are divided into two large groups - ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Which of them belong to which group, we have to find out. What non-ferrous metals exist on our planet?
What is ferrous metal
The category of "ferrous metals" includes iron and all its alloys that currently exist. In its pure form, iron is found only in research laboratories. Mostly it is steel.
This type of metal is formed by combining iron with carbon and adding additional elements that give the resulting metal certain properties needed in a particular production (for example, magnetic).
Cast iron and steel
As a rule, several standard phases go through the production of ferrous metals: ore mining and its processing in a blast furnace. After that, cast iron is obtained, from which any kinds of steel and iron alloys are subsequently obtained. The latter are often used in heavy industry. In contrast, non-ferrous metals are a softer substance with slightly different properties, they are used in another field.
The composition of cast iron includes 93% iron and about 3-5% carbon, plus residual elements in a small amount. This material is rarely used for production because it is fragile. It can be found in the manufacture of certain types of pipes, valves or valves. But most of the produced volume of pig iron (over 90%) is processed into steel.
The main types of steel that are made of iron are: carbon and low-carbon (hardened) steel, stainless, ferrite-chromium, chromium, martensitic-chromium, chromium-vanadium, alloyed, nickel, tungsten, molybdenum and manganese steel.
Iron ore
In its pure form, this element of the periodic table in the earth's crust is contained in rather small quantities (only 5.5%). But it is very much in the composition of various iron ores.
The most significant deposits (reserves of more than 30 trillion tons) are strata of ferruginous quartzite, whose age is more than two billion years. They are distributed mainly in places such as South and North America, Africa, India and the west of Australia.
What are non-ferrous metals
Another large group of metals, unlike the previous one, has softer properties, they are more ductile, have thermal and electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance and many others.
Non-ferrous metals are the combined name of all metals and their alloys, with the exception of iron. They can also be called "non-ferrous metals", which will be quite fair.
Non-ferrous metals are:
- gold, silver, platinum (precious metals);
- aluminum, titanium, magnesium, lithium, beryllium (light);
- copper, tin, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel (heavy);
- niobium, molybdenum, zirconium, chromium, tungsten (refractory);
- indium, gallium, thallium (scattered);
- scandium, yttrium and all lanthanides (rare earths);
- radium, technetium, sea anemone, polonium, thorium, France, uranium and transuranic elements (radioactive).
History of non-ferrous metallurgy
Non-ferrous metals today are actively used in mechanical engineering, chemical industry, construction and many other areas of production. Thanks to scientific and technological progress, the scope of this material is constantly expanding, and metal mining technologies continue to improve.
Over time, the use of non-ferrous metals increased, which led to the discovery of new elements and names. More and more metals began to be used in production. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 15 names were used, and after 50 years - twice as many. Today, more than 70 different metals are used, which is the majority among the currently known.
The growth in demand for heavy non-ferrous metals was due to the growing needs of the military industry (for the production of ammunition), but a group of light was used in the aerospace and space industry.
Since ancient times, the noble group has been widely used for the manufacture of jewelry and jewelry. In the 90s of the 20th century, 78% of gold, 36% of platinum and 15% of silver were used precisely for these purposes. If we take other areas where noble non-ferrous metals are used, this is electronic production (gold contacts in devices), automobile production (about 43% of platinum), and silver was used to make film and photo materials.
Features of non-ferrous metals
Each of the metals of this group has properties that determine in most cases its belonging to it. It also determines the use of non-ferrous metals in many industries.
So, for example, most of them are characterized by high heat capacity and thermal conductivity, which gives them the ability to quickly cool after welding. There is a flip side to this: when working with metals such as magnesium and copper, you need to heat them immediately before welding, and during the process you need to use strong heat sources so that they do not cool.
Another characteristic property is a decrease in mechanical properties. In view of this, it is necessary to carefully work with them to avoid deformation.
Non-ferrous metals actively react with gases during heating. This property is clearly demonstrated by titanium, molybdenum and tantalum.
This group of metals can be used for a long time, but they must be protected from oxygen, which destroys metals. For this, the conductors, for example, are coated with a protective varnish. Previously, the metal can be primed in two layers.
Copper ore
This type of ore is the most common in the category of “non-ferrous”. This metal also has the widest area of use: construction, industrial energy, aircraft manufacturing, medicine, the production of efficient heat exchangers and many others.
The locations of copper deposits are also diverse. Today, great importance is given to poor disseminated ores (porphyritic type), which are mined in the vents of volcanoes. A chemical element was formed from a hot solution, which came from magma foci. A large reserve of such ore is located in the Americas.
Another type of copper ore is pyrite, mined from the bottom of the seas and oceans. The source is land in the Urals.
And another huge source of such ores is copper sandstone (Chita region in Russia, Katanga in Africa).
Thus, non-ferrous metals are an indispensable material for the manufacture of many things that surround us.