What is copper in geography
Answers
copper is an element with chemical formula Cu. its atomic mass is 29. Copper can be extracted from its ore by:
1. Traditional mining
(a) underground - sinking a vertical shaft into the Earth to an appropriate depth and driving horizontal tunnels into the ore. (b) open pit - 90% of ore is mined by this method. Ores near the surface can be quarried after removal of the surface layers.
2. Leaching
The ore is treated with dilute sulphuric acid.This trickles slowly through the ore dissolving copper to form copper sulphate. The copper is recovered by electrolytic refining. Advantages of this process are:
* much less energy is use than in traditional mining
* no waste gases are given off
* it can be used on ores with as little as 0.1% copper - for this reason, leaching extraction is growing in importance.
Usage-
(a) it is commonly used as electric wires as it is very good conductor of electricity.
(b) it can be beaten into thin sheets an used to make cans, and some other equipment oftenly used in agriculture.
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