Recycling Aluminum Essay Example For Students

Recycling Aluminum Essay Justin Tresize111298Per. 3#13Properties-Aluminum is the 13 element on the periodic table. It has high malleability and ductility, high electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, and high resistance to corrosion. Some useful alloys that are useful are aluminum bronze, alnico, and aluminum alloy, ect. Aluminum is strongly electropositive and extremely reactive. In contact with air, aluminum instantly becomes covered with a rough transparent layer of aluminum oxide. History-A Danish chemist, known as Hans Cristian Oersted, first isolated aluminum in 1825, using a chemical process involving potassium amalgam. Between 1827 and 1845, Friedrich Wohler, a German chemist, improved the process by using metallic potassium. He was the first to measure the specific gravity of aluminum and show itd lightness. In 1854, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville obtained the metal by reducing aluminum chloride, with sodium. Deville displayed pure aluminum at the Paris exposition of 1855. Aluminum the most abundant metallic constituent in the crust of the Earth. It is never found as a non-metal. It occurs most commonly as aluminum silicate or as a silicate of aluminum mixed with other metals such as sodium, potassium, iron, calcium, and magnesium. Charles M. Hall and Paul L. T. Heroult, independently and almost simultaneously found out that alumna, or aluminum oxide, would dissolve in fused cryolite (Na3AlF6) and then could be decomposed electronically into a crude molten m etal. Uses-The given volume of aluminum weighs less than one-third than steel. Its high strength to weight ratio makes it very useful. We use it from foils to cans, to space shuttles. This element is very, very useful and is recyclable. We use aluminum for conductors as well.We use it to weld hardware together because of their great conductability. Since the early 1800s we have seen aluminum as a great metal with countless uses. But we cant make all the aluminum we need, although there is a lot on Earth, we have a certain amount that we can run out of if we dont re-use and recycle.