native metal

(noun)

Any metal that is found in its metallic form, either pure or as an alloy, in nature.

Related Terms

  • mining
  • alloy

Examples of native metal in the following topics:

  • Occurrence of Metals

    • A native metal is any metal that is found in its metallic form in nature, either pure or as an alloy.
    • Metals that can be found as native deposits singly and/or in alloys include antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, iron, nickel, selenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, and zinc.
    • This is why only the less reactive metals such as gold and platinum are found as native metals.
    • Native metals were prehistoric man's only access to metal.
    • Describe the characteristics of metal alloys and the natural occurence of native metals.
  • Extractive Metallurgy

    • Metal ores are generally oxides, sulfides and silicates of "native" metals (such as native copper) that are not commonly concentrated in the Earth's crust.
    • Extractive metallurgy is the practice of removing valuable metals from an ore and refining the extracted raw metals into a purer form.
    • In order to convert a metal oxide or sulfide to a purer metal, the ore must be reduced physically, chemically, or electrolytically.
    • Ore bodies often contain more than one valuable metal.
    • Additionally, a concentrate may contain more than one valuable metal.
  • Titanium, Chromium, and Manganese

    • Titanium is a strong, lustrous transition metal.
    • Titanium metal has two very important and useful properties: it is resistant to corrosion and it has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal.
    • Following this first discovery, small amounts of native (free) chromium metal have been discovered in rare minerals, but these are not used commercially.
    • Chromium metal has proven to be highly valuable due to its high corrosion resistance and hardness, particularly when steel is combined with metallic chromium to form stainless steel.
    • It is a metal with important industrial uses, particularly in stainless steels.
  • Silver

    • Silver has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal.
    • Silver is a soft, white, lustrous transition metal.
    • It has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal.
    • The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver).
    • Alkaline solutions of silver nitrate can be reduced to silver metal by reducing sugars such as glucose.
  • Elements and Compounds

    • The chemical elements are divided into the metals, the metalloids, and the non-metals.
    • Metals, typically found on the left side of the periodic table, are:
    • In contrast, non-metals, found on the right side of the periodic table (to the right of the staircase), are:
    • Metalloids have some characteristics of metals and some characteristics of non-metals.
    • Among the more common of such "native elements" are copper, silver, gold, and sulfur.
  • Bonding in Metals: The Electron Sea Model

    • Metallic bonding may be described as the sharing of free electrons among a lattice of positively charged metal ions.
    • Metallic bonding may be described as the sharing of free electrons among a lattice of positively charged metal ions.
    • While ionic bonds join metals to nonmetals, and covalent bonds join nonmetals to nonmetals, metallic bonds are responsible for the bonding between metal atoms.
    • The characteristics of metallic bonds explain a number of the unique properties of metals:
    • Metals are shiny.
  • Metal Exchange Reactions

    • Alternative methods of preparing a wide variety of organometallic compounds generally involve an exchange reaction in which a given metal is either moved to a new location or replaced by a new metal, which may include B, Al, Ti, V, Fe, Ni, Cu, Mo, Ru, Pd, Sn, Pt, Hg & Pb.
  • General Properties of Metals

    • Metals are usually malleable, ductile, and shiny.
    • Metals are shiny and lustrous with a high density.
    • For example, hitting a metal with a hammer will "dent" the metal, not shatter it into pieces.
    • This is very instrumental in the conductivity of the metal.
    • Sodium metal is soft enough to be cut with a plastic knife.
  • Metallic Crystals

    • Metallic crystals are held together by metallic bonds, electrostatic interactions between cations and delocalized electrons.
    • These interactions are called metallic bonds.
    • Atoms in metals are arranged like closely-packed spheres, and two packing patterns are particularly common: body-centered cubic, wherein each metal is surrounded by eight equivalent metals, and face-centered cubic, in which the metals are surrounded by six neighboring atoms.
    • Some metals (the alkali and alkaline earth metals) have low density, low hardness, and low melting points.
    • The high density of most metals is due to the tightly packed crystal lattice of the metallic structure.
  • Metal Cations that Act as Lewis Acids

    • Ligands create a complex when forming coordinate bonds with transition metals ions; the transition metal ion acts as a Lewis acid, and the ligand acts as a Lewis base.
    • Nearly all compounds formed by the transition metals can be viewed as collections of the Lewis bases—or ligands—bound to the metal, which functions as the Lewis acid.
    • One coordination chemistry's applications is using Lewis bases to modify the activity and selectivity of metal catalysts in order to create useful metal-ligand complexes in biochemistry and medicine.
    • Examples of several metals (V, Mn, Re, Fe, Ir) in coordination complexes with various ligands.
    • All these metals act as Lewis acids, accepting electron pairs from their ligands.
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