Kaolin is an especially fine, white aluminum-containing clay that is used in making porcelain.Īluminum oxide, Al 2 O 3, often called alumina, does not melt until over 3, 632 ☏ (2, 000 ☌), and is used to line furnaces. Because it is a very active metal, aluminum is never found in the metallic form, but only in a wide variety of earthy and rocky minerals, including feldspar, mica, granite, and clay. It constitutes 8.1% of the crust by weight and 6.3% of all the atoms in the crust. Where aluminum comes fromĪluminum is the third most abundant element in Earth ’s crust, after only oxygen and silicon, and it is the most abundant of all metals. Aluminum is being used more and more in automobiles because it is only one-third as heavy as steel and therefore decreases fuel consumption. Aluminum alloys are used in airplanes, highway signs, bridges, storage tanks, and buildings. Pure aluminum is relatively soft and not the strongest of metals, but when melted together with other elements such as copper, manganese, silicon, magnesium, and zinc, it forms alloys with a wide range of useful properties. It is one of the most useful metals we have four million tons of it are produced every year in the United States alone -a production rate that among metals is second only to that of iron. It is attractive, nontoxic, corrosion-resistant, non-magnetic, and easy to form, cast, or machine into a variety of shapes. ![]() General propertiesĪluminum is a light-weight, silvery metal, familiar to every household in the form of pots and pans, beverage cans, and aluminum foil. Known as aluminium in other English-speaking countries, it was named after alum, one of its salts that has been known for thousands of years and was used by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans as a mordant -a chemical that helps dyes stick to cloth. Its atoms consist of a single stable isotope, 27Al. Its symbol is Al its atomic weight is 26.98 its specific gravity is 2.70 its melting point is 1, 220.5 ☏ (660 ☌) and its boiling point is 4, 566.2 ☏ (2, 519 ☌).Īluminum is a metal in group 13 of the periodic table. ![]() Aluminum is the metallic chemical element of atomic number 13.
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