Extracting metals

• How are unreactive metals found in the earth?

  in their native state
• Why do we extract metals from ores?

  Contain enough metal to make it economical to extract
• What metals can be extracted by reduction?

  Metals that are less reactive than carbon e.g. copper, zinc and iron
• What is reduction?

  Taking away oxygen with carbon
• Where does reduction occur?

  blast furnace
• How is copper extracted from its ore?

  .Smelting - heating the copper ore very strongly with air to produce crude copper.

  .Electrolysis
• Phytomining - Using plants to absorb metal compounds. The plants are burned to produce ash that contains the metal compound
• Bioleaching - Using bacteria to produce leachate solutions that contain metal compounds
• Electrolysis - The positive copper ions in the solution are attracted to the negative electrode where they each gain two electrons and become copper atoms
• Displacement - Displacement using scrap iron produces copper from the solution because iron is a more reactive metal and displaces of the solution
• Why are current methods of extraction expensive?

  .There are many stages of the process

  .Much energy is needed
• Why should we recycle metals?

  . Extracting them uses limited resources

  .extracting them is expensive in terms of energy