gcsescience.com                                                13                                                 gcsescience.com

Extraction of Metals

Aluminium - Cost and Recycling.

Aluminium is the third most abundant element
 in the Earth's crust after oxygen and silicon.
It is the most abundant metal but it is more expensive to produce than iron
because of the cost of the large amounts of electricity
which are needed for electrolysis - see moles.
About half of the aluminium used in the UK is recycled.

Extracting aluminium from recycled scrap requires
only about 5% of the energy needed to extract aluminium from its ore.
Collecting scrap metal and transport to the metal extraction plant
add extra costs.

back           Headings           Search           Questions           next

gcsescience.com  Contents   The Periodic Table   Index   Quizzes  gcsescience.com

Copyright © 2008 Dr. Colin France. All Rights Reserved.