01 September 2012

More Aluminium Metal

By Christopher Eyres


Aluminum metal is the most abundant in the earth's crust but found only in mix, customarily as an ore called bauxite. It also happens in gems such as topaz, garnet, ruby and sapphire. It is found mixed in over 270 different minerals. The metal is very conductive and has great thermal properties and these properties are utilised for the diverse wishes of the industries. Aluminum 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 aluminum 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're processed with proper heat and engineers, they could be the strongest metal. Alloys formed with copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese and silicon are utilized in various industries.

Aluminium metal is extensively utilized in transport industry. The use in aircrafts and autos are well-known. A large range of household items ranging from cooking utensils to baseball bats and watches are made of aluminium and its alloys. The electronics are enclosed in the shells made of aluminium as they wouldn't add to the weight of the equipment. Aluminium is used for making drinking cans, foil wrappings, bottle tops and foil boxes that are at length employed in food and libation industry. This is better as the metal is non-toxic and aromaless.

Powdered aluminium is employed in paint and also forms an essential ingredient of the pyrotechnics like solid rocket fuels. The mixture of properties light weight and great strength makes it useful in construction industry like window, doors, street lighting poles and sailing ship masts.

The highly conductive property of the metal makes it ideal to be utilized in electrical transmission lines for power distribution, heat sinks for electronic appliances such as transistors and CPU. About one kilogram of aluminum conducts virtually twice as much electricity as 1 kilogram of copper. But use of aluminium in household wiring has been found to be unsafe. Due to its ductile nature and corrosion resistance, the metal is utilized for electric applications like Television aerials, satellite dishes and is the standard base for bulbs.

Aluminum is a reusable material and many products can be made from the old form. Even the silver helium balloons that are frequently seen in birthday parties are covered with a thin, evaporated coating of aluminum metal over the tough plastic.

It is however , imperative to realize the fact that aluminum is a reactive metal and together with some food acids may produce more damage than good. People susceptible to aluminum are susceptible to ulcers in the mouth, seizures of the foodpipe, gut ulcers, slow progressive vision impairment, skin rash and itching, glandular dysfunctions or cancer.




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