D. Crowley, 2007

Metal & Reactivity

Metal & Reactivity

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

To link the uses of a metal to its reactivity

Poster Using your knowledge, you need to create a poster of

the reactivity series - it needs to be colourful, and perhaps have pictures of the metals by the sides

If you can come up with a memorable way of remembering the reactivity series, this will be even better

Questions

Why is sodium not used for cutlery?

Why is magnesium not used for car bodies?

Why can people wear gold?

Digging for gold Why is it that some metals are found easily, and others

are more difficult to obtain?

An element or compound that is found naturally in the Earth is called a mineral

A mineral which has a high enough percentage of metal to make it economically viable is called an ore

Ore

So, if people can make money from extracting the metal we call the rock a metal ore

Lots of metals ores are found as oxides

(metal + oxygen metal oxide)

To obtain our metal we can use the reactivity series

Getting it

How could we extract some iron from iron ore?

Think about the reactivity series, and displacement between a reactive metal, and a less reactive metal in solution

Reactivity If a metal is less reactive than zinc, carbon

can be used to displace the metal

Carbon is used because it is very cheap

PotassiumSodiumCalciumMagnesiumAluminium

(Carbon)ZincIronLead

(Hydrogen)CopperSilverGoldPlatinum

Metals above carbon need to be extracted by electrolysis…

Native

However, some metals are found natively - that is they are found as the pure element

This is why you can sometimes ‘pan’ for gold; silver and platinum