Ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Use, application of non-ferrous metals. Non-ferrous metals are ...

Metals surround us always and everywhere. Today it is an integral part of many things that we use every day. It's enough just to look around the room in which you are in order to understand that this is really so.

Even from the school bench, we know that all these minerals materials are divided into two large groups - black and non-ferrous metals. Which of them to which group belong, we have to find out. What non-ferrous metals exist on our planet?

What is black metal?

The category of "ferrous metals" includes iron and all its alloys, which now exist. In its pure form, iron is found only in research laboratories. Mostly it became.

This type of metals is formed by combining iron with carbon and adding additional elements that give the resulting metal those or other properties necessary in a particular production (for example, magnetic).

Cast iron and steel

As a rule, in the production of ferrous metals are several standard phases: the extraction of ore and its processing in a blast furnace. After that, iron is obtained, from which all kinds of steel and iron alloys are subsequently obtained. The latter are more often used in heavy industry. In contrast, non-ferrous metals are a softer substance with several other properties, they are used in another sphere.

The composition of cast iron includes 93% of iron and about 3-5% of carbon, plus residual elements in a small amount. This material is rarely used for production, as 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 cast iron (more than 90%) is processed into steel.

The main types of steel that are made of iron are: carbon and low-carbon (hardened) steel, stainless, ferritic-chrome, chromic, martensitic-chromium, chrome vanadium, alloyed, nickel, tungsten, molybdenum and manganese.

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 (the reserve is more than 30 trillion tons) are the layers of ferruginous quartzites, 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, in contrast to the previous one, has softer properties, they are more plastic, have thermal and electrical conductivity, resistance to corrosion, 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 is 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 (dispersed);

- scandium, yttrium and all lanthanides (rare-earth);

- radium, technetium, actinium, polonium, thorium, france, uranium and transuranium elements (radioactive).

History of non-ferrous metallurgy

Non-ferrous metals are now widely used in machine building, chemical industry, construction and many other areas of production. Thanks to scientific and technical progress, the scope of this material is constantly expanding, and the technology of metal extraction continues to improve.

Over time, the use of non-ferrous metals has grown, which has 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 titles were used, and after 50 years - twice as many. To date, more than 70 different metals are used, which is the majority among the now 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), while the light group was used in the aerospace industry.

A group of noble earrings is massively used for making jewelry and ornaments. In the 90s of the 20th century, 78% of gold, 36% of platinum and 15% of silver were used for this purpose. If we take other spheres where noble non-ferrous metals are used, it is electronic production (gold contacts in devices), production of cars (about 43% of platinum), and silver was used for the production of cinematographic and photographic materials.

Features of non-ferrous metals

Each of the metals of this group has properties that determine the majority of its belonging to it. This also determines the use of non-ferrous metals in many areas of industry.

So, for example, most of them have high heat capacity and thermal conductivity, which gives them the ability to quickly cool down after welding. There is a downside to this: when working with metals such as magnesium and copper, it is necessary to heat them directly before welding, and during the process you need to use strong heat sources so that they do not cool.

Another characteristic property is the reduction of mechanical properties. Therefore, it is necessary to work with them carefully 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 need to be protected from oxygen, which destroys metals. To do this, conductors, for example, are covered with protective varnish. Pre-metal can be primed in two layers.

Copper ores

This type of ore is the most common in the category of "colored". This metal also has the widest scope of use: construction, industrial energy, aircraft building, medicine, production of efficient heat exchangers and many others.

Places of copper deposits are also diverse. Today, great importance is attached to poor disseminated ores (of porphyry type), which are mined in the vents of volcanoes. A chemical element was formed from the hot solution that came from the magmatic foci. A large reserve of such ore is located in the Americas.

Another type of copper ore is pyrite, extracted from the bottom of the seas and oceans. The source is the 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 making many things that surround us.