9781422279434

THE CHEMISTRY OF EVERYDAY ELEMENTS

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Aluminum

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Mason Crest

THE CHEMISTRY OF EVERYDAY ELEMENTS

Aluminum Carbon Gold Helium Hydrogen Oxygen Silicon Silver Understanding the Periodic Table Uranium

THE CHEMISTRY OF EVERYDAY ELEMENTS

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Aluminum

By John Csiszar

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2018 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3837-0 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3838-7 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7943-4

First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Patty Kelley www.shorelinepublishing.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Publisher.

Cover photographs by Dreamstime.com: Monkey Business Images (left); Selensergen (center); Hannade (right).

QR Codes disclaimer:

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Aluminum

Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Discovery and History . . . . . . . . . . 10 Chemical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Aluminum and You . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Aluminum Combines . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Aluminum in Our World . . . . . . . . . 46 Find Out More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Index/Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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Aluminum: INTRODUCTION

A luminum is one of the most versatile and surprising metals on the periodic table. It can exist at extremes yet remain common. It doesn’t melt until it reaches 1,221°F (660°C), yet doesn’t boil until an incredible 4,478°F (2470°C). Aluminum can be crushed simply by being stepped on but can be made strong enough to build airplanes and warships. It’s a metal that is just about everywhere in the Earth’s crust but that you’ll never find by simply digging. Aluminum is one of those metals that’s all around you, all of the time, thanks both to the wonders of Mother Earth and the triumphs of modern science. In some ways, it’s obvious; in others, you won’t notice it at all. You probably don’t see alumi- num flecks in the soil while you’re out for a walk, but be thank- ful they are there, since they are an essential part of modern American consumer culture. In fact, aluminum is likely an im- portant part of your daily life. Do you have a smartphone next A Useful and Versatile Element

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to you or in your pocket as you read this book? Are you drinking soda from a can? Did you ride in a car today? If so, you can thank alumi- num for all of the silent work it does around you. Aluminum is abundant, yet it can be hard to find. Unlike other met- als such as gold, which can simply be mined and refined, aluminum es- sentially has to be created, or extracted from other compounds. While the Earth is generous with its aluminum supply, it took a roster of brilliant scientists—along with developments in other fields—before aluminum could be mass-produced at an affordable cost. For these and other reasons, aluminum is one of mankind’s “newest” metals, only finding widespread use in the 20th century. Beyond its obvious uses in our culture, this metal carries a bewil- dering array of characteristics that make it one of the most useful known metals. Take a soda can, for example. It feels very lightweight. (Imagine if they were still made of steel!) Aluminum’s low weight-to- size ratio is one of its most useful attributes. The modern automobile and aviation industries, among many others, wouldn’t be what they are today without this benefit of aluminum. That same can demonstrates two additional traits of this marvel- ous metal. First, pick up your can by the top and bottom and lightly

The Chemistry of Everyday Elements

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Aluminum

squeeze. Notice how the metal feels firm in your hands. Next, grab it by the middle and squeeze it lightly until it flexes. See how easily the metal bends? You’ve just discovered two of the other amazing prop- erties of aluminum—strength and flexibility. While aluminum’s role in our biology is limited, there is a measur- able amount of aluminum in your organs at this moment. In the lab, aluminum can trigger some awesome chemical reactions, if you’re prepared with the right materials and safety gear. Someday, an alumi- num reaction might be part of a hydrogen car. These and other stories form part of the fascinating history of aluminum. However, to keep this production ongoing, we must be re- sponsible with our efforts. While aluminum can be of great benefit, as with other metals, there are costs involved in its production. The financial cost of aluminum production tumbled rapidly after its dis- covery, but it still remains an energy-intensive process. Using those large amounts of energy has both financial and environmental im- pacts. Aluminum production also results in by-products that must be properly disposed of to prevent environmental damage. We can all play an important role in reducing the environmental and financial costs of aluminum production through one simple step: recycling.

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Periodic Table

The Periodic Table of the Elements is arranged in numerical order. The number of each element is determined by the number of protons in its nucleus. The horizontal rows are called periods. The number of the ele- ments increases across a period, from left to right. The vertical columns are called groups. Groups of elements share similar characteristics. The colors, which can vary depending on the way the creators design their version of the chart, also create related collections of elements, such as noble gases, metals, or nonmetals, among others.

The Chemistry of Everyday Elements

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Aluminum

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

alloys metals made by combining two or more metal elements electrolysis breaking apart chemicals with the use of electricity smelted extracted ore from a mineral by heating or melting

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Aluminum: CHAPTER 1

Discovery and History

W hile aluminum is essentially never found in its pure and natural state, it is nonetheless found throughout the Earth. In fact, aluminum ranks as the most abundant metallic element on Earth, making up eight percent of the mass of the Earth’s crust. Even including nonmetallic elements, aluminum is the third most common element found in Earth’s crust (after oxygen and sili- con). With all this aluminum, it might seem odd that there wasn’t an “Aluminum Age” at some point in humanity’s history. After all, the Gold Age saw gold smelted as long as 8,000 years ago; the Bronze Age saw the flourishing of copper, tin, and zinc 6,000 years ago; and silver and iron had their days about 3,000–4,000 years ago. So, why was there no Aluminum Age?

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Aluminum

The truth is that aluminum—of a kind—was used in ancient times. However, while the gold, silver and iron of the past civilizations were pretty much the same as they are today, the aluminum used by earlier civilizations was not the pure aluminum we use today. Instead, com- pounds that turned out to include aluminum were used every day.

Alum, which is a chemical com- pound, was used by Egyptians more than 5,000 years ago to help set dyes in fabric and oth- er materials. Aluminum silicates were added to clay by Persian potters for added strength. A type of aluminum sulfate was used by ancient Greeks as an astringent. However, we don’t find any true aluminum cups or weapons or tools in any ancient civilization. The reason is that while the

Ancient pottery shows chemical signs of aluminum in the clay.

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Earth has always had its aluminum—sometimes even in close prox- imity to the commonly used gold, silver, and iron—it wasn’t actual- ly discovered until relatively recently. Elemental aluminum was only discovered about 200 years ago, and it was only actually produced starting about 150 years ago! Why wasn’t it found earlier? For such an omnipresent metal, it turns out that aluminum is quite stealthy. In fact, aluminum, in its pure form, doesn’t exist naturally any- where on Earth. All of the aluminum found on Earth is already bonded with other compounds and must be extracted and processed to be iso- lated as the element itself. While the ancients were able to make use of various aluminum compounds, it wasn’t until the modern scientific era that we began to identify, extract, and produce pure aluminum. We can thank a long chain of scientists for their pioneering work in this field: Sir Humphry Davy first identified the existence of a base metal that he called “aluminum” in 1808. Hans Christian Oersted used electro-chemical reactions to isolate aluminum from alum in 1825. German chemist Friedrich Wöhler is credited with isolating the first pure aluminum in 1827.

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The Chemistry of Everyday Elements

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Aluminum

Later chemists and researchers found even better ways to produce aluminum. By 1856, French chemist Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Dev- ille used electrolysis to actually separate usable amounts of alumi- num, beginning the modern age of aluminum production. (As a side note, Deville was funded by none other than Napoleon III, who, in ad- dition to creating fancy tableware, was hoping to incorporate alumi- num into his military armor.) By the 1880s, chemists Charles Martin Hall, an American, Paul L.T. Heroult, a Frenchman, and Karl Joseph Bayer, an Austrian, had perfected similar processes that are still used to this day to produce aluminum. Many famous writers of the time took note of the rise of alumi- num and helped popularize its growth. The French science fiction au- thor Jules Verne wrote his famous From the Earth to the Moon about a space capsule made of aluminum, a material which no doubt added to the fantasy of actually flying to the Moon. Even famous British nov- elist Charles Dickens had this to say about the burgeoning aluminum industry: “Aluminum may probably send tin to the right about face, drive copper saucepans into penal servitude, and blow up German silver sky-high into nothing.” And J.W. Richards, one of the first au-

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