Chinese Presentation

金 Metal

The element I will talk about in my presentation is the Metal element. Metal it is the final element that closes the cycle of the five elements while at the same time opening it upagain to the element of water that starts off again. In my presentation I will focus more on the aspects of Resource Management, Metal pollution in China and Effects on the Environment.

Metalextraction in China

In terms of mining industry China ranks 3rd in the globe. The diversity of the minerals and therefore metals extracted varies from plate to plate. Depending on the type of plate andterrain found depends the type of metal.

Magmatic Deposits:
>Chromium, Nickel, Copper, Platinum and Iron

Hydrothermal Deposits:
>Copper, Lead, Zinc, Gold, Silver, Molybdenum, Tin,Mercury and Cobalt.

Hydrothermal Veins:
>Gold and Silver usually.

Placer Deposits:
>Heavy Metallic Minerals such as Iron and Titanium.

Usually extraction comes from ores. Ores arenaturally occurring sources of the metal in question where you can economically extract the metal. Aluminium for example comes from Bauxite (50% - 70% of aluminium contained in Bauxite).

Concentrating theOre:

Getting rid of as much as possible mineral material from the ore before the ore itself is transformed into the metal in question.
This can be done through a series of methods:

-Chemically(Chemical reactions with acids usually)
-Froth Flotation (Involving air, water and reactants that leave the finished product while getting rid of the main unwanted minerals)
-Reduction (addingelectrons in order to purify the ‘positive’ metal ore into the metal in question):
>Carbon
>Using another reacting metal, that later on can be removed
>Electrolysis (electrons added to themetal ion at the cathode, very electrically wise expensive)

Main Deposits in China

Main Metal Extracting Companies:
-Aluminium Corporation of China (Limited Chicago)
-Anhui Minmetals...