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From Rock to Metal — Why the Route Changes
Most metals are not found free in nature. They occur as minerals, and a mineral from which a metal can be extracted profitably is called an ore. Every ore is a mineral, but not every mineral is an ore. Only the least reactive metals — gold, platinum, and sometimes silver and copper — are found in the free, native state.
The whole subject of metallurgy follows one rule: the method of extraction depends on the metal's position in the reactivity series. Low-reactivity metals can be freed just by heating; middle-reactivity metals need a reducing agent such as carbon; and highly reactive metals hold on to their partners so tightly that only electrolysis can pull them apart.
This topic follows real metals through that route as case studies, because exams test exactly this reasoning — which step, which metal, and why.
1. Heating a sulphide ore strongly in the presence of excess air is called:
2. Which ore is used for the extraction of aluminium?
3. Froth flotation is mainly used to concentrate which type of ore?
4. In the extraction of aluminium, molten cryolite is added to alumina in order to:
5. In the electrolytic refining of copper, the impure copper is made the:
6. Sodium is extracted by electrolysis of molten sodium chloride rather than by heating its oxide with carbon because:
7. Cinnabar is an ore of which metal?
8. Heating calamine (ZnCO₃) in limited air to obtain zinc oxide and carbon dioxide is an example of: