金属从哪里来? 很好, 它们通常来自矿石. 什么是矿石? 它们是天然岩石 (或沉积物) 含有一种或多种有价值的矿物质——这些矿物质含有金属. 金属, 然后, 通常从地壳中挖出 (开采的), 然后处理并出售以获利. 有哪些关键金属, 作为例子? That’d be aluminum, silver and copper, for starters.
纯金属
Pure metals can later be improved by mixing them with other metals to make alloys. What are alloys? They’re a mixture of chemical elements, with at least one of which is a metal. What are some key alloys, 作为例子? That’d be steel, brass, pewter and bronze, for starters. Alloys can be used in a wide variety of applications– you’d find them in things like surgical tools, automobiles, airplanes and buildings.
Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals
Now back to metals– there are ferrous ones (which have iron in them) and non-ferrous ones (which don’t have iron in them). 长, long ago, several thousand years ago in fact, humans first started using metals to make things when they figured out how to get copper from its ore– turning it into bronze (a harder alloy) thanks to the addition of tin. The other major development was when humans discovered iron, which then mixed with carbon to create the very useful alloy we know as steel.
When metals are mined from ore-bearing rock, they have to be extracted and refined, which can be done using modern technology like electrolytic processes and/or hot furnaces. Keep in mind that it may take the mining of a lot of rocks to get a lot of metals– concentrations of minerals within rocks are often quite low. Impurities get filtered away. Perhaps electric current is used to break certain strong chemical bonds. There’s a lot that goes into the whole process.
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