Page 4 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

An element is a substance that cannot be broken down into a simpler substance by any known means. Each of the 92 naturally occurring elements is therefore one of the fundamental materials from which everything in the Universe is made. This book is about aluminium.
Aluminium
Aluminium, the third most common element
on Earth after oxygen and silicon, and by far the most abundant metal on Earth, is now used very widely for everything from soft drink cans to car bodies to window frames. Compounds containing aluminium are found in materials as different as antacid medicines, the insulation materials in
our homes and in the small white flecks (called vermiculite) in garden composts.
Aluminium is one of a number of soft and weak metals (like copper and tin) that scientists call “poor” metals. But aluminium alloys, mixtures of aluminium and other metals,
produce materials as tough as steel. The name aluminium comes from the
word alumen, which is the Latin name for alum. Alum is an age-old material called a mordant, used for making dyes stick to fabrics.
Although it is so widely used today, aluminium has only recently come into use. This is because aluminium is so strongly attracted to oxygen that it can only be refined using huge amounts of electrical energy and electricity did not become readily available until this century.
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