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CRUDE OIL |
3930 |
3630 |
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CRUDE OIL |
3830 |
3543 |
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CRUDE OIL |
4383 |
4086 |
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CRUDE OIL |
4480 |
4180 |
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CRUDE OIL |
4588 |
4300 |
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GOLD |
27450 |
27383 |
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GOLD |
27490 |
27355 |
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GOLD |
27300 |
27250 |
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GOLD |
27395 |
27347 |
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GOLD |
27495 |
27395 |
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| Metals informations |
Nickel: Top nickel producing companies: Norilsk Vale (CVRD) BHP Billiton Xstrata Eramet S.A.
Top nickel producing mines: Polar Division - Taimyr Peninsula, Talvivaara, Goro-Tiebaghi, Mt Keith
Top nickel producing countries: Russia, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Colombia, Philippines, China, Cuba, Brazil |
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Nickel history |
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If there ever was a utilitarian metal, it's nickel. This well-known transition element may have more varied applications than any other metal. It is used in everything from our coins to our automobiles and from jewelry to paper clips, and new uses are found all the time.
Basically, nickel is a hard, malleable, ductile, lustrous, silver-white metal that takes a high polish. It conducts heat and electricity and is slightly magnetic. It forms numerous compounds, many of them blue or green, and finely divided nickel can adsorb hydrogen.
But it is as an alloy with other metals that nickel really shines. The first reported use of nickel was in a nickel-copper-zinc alloy produced in China in the Middle Ages. It is believed that some alloys were produced in prehistoric times. Today, an estimated 85% of nickel ends up as alloys.
The largest use is in making stainless steel. As much as 70% of nickel goes to make stainless or other steel alloys. With concentrations of up to 45%, nickel adds strength and corrosion resistance. Surprisingly, 16% of stainless steel goes into the chemical process industry. Electronics consume 18%; auto manufacturing, 15%; and the food and beverage industry, 13%.
In addition to its use in steel alloys, nickel forms useful alloys with other metals. Copper-nickel alloys offer a good compromise between strength and ductility and resist corrosion in saltwater, nonoxidizing acids, and alkalies. These alloys are used in industrial plumbing and petrochemical equipment.
Nickel-copper is also the alloy of which coins are made. The U.S. nickel is 25% nickel and 75% copper.
Other useful alloys include nickel-chromium and nickel-molybdenum combinations that are the basis for materials that can withstand extremely corrosive chemical plant environments, such as hot sulfuric and phosphoric acids, hydrogen chloride gas, and other oxidative conditions.
Electroplating is the second largest use for this versatile metal. The process is used to produce corrosion-resistant and decorative finishes, as well as substrates for chromium coatings. Nickel can be plated on many surfaces, including plastics. Automobile trim, bathroom fittings, and electronic connectors are just a few of the many applications.
There is also a process for plating nickel without an electric current. This "electroless" process makes very uniform plating. Other materials can be added to improve the finish, such as Teflon to increase lubricity or silicon carbide for wear resistance. This process is used on computer hard drives for a smooth, nonmagnetic base for the magnetic recording layer.
Nickel also happens to be an excellent catalyst for many chemical reactions. By itself or combined with other metals, nickel is used for a myriad of industrial and research applications. The most famous nickel catalyst is called Raney nickel. Developed by Murray Raney in the 1920s, it is 90% nickel and 10% aluminum. |
All of these uses demand a lot of nickel. The U.S. consumes more than 195,000 metric tons of nickel yearly. But the last nickel mine in the U.S. closed in 1987. Most new nickel comes from Canada and Australia. The two most common ores are nickel-iron-sulfide pentlandite, (Ni,Fe)9S8, and a nickel silicate contained in hydrated magnesium, usually garnierite, (Ni,Mg)6 Si4O10(OH)8.
But at a cost of $8,000 per ton, nickel is not cheap. So there is an efficient recycling system to recover and reuse nickel. More than 110,000 tons of nickel were recovered from scrap in the U.S. last year, about 57% of total consumption, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Unfortunately, nickel comes with an evil side. Several nickel compounds are known human carcinogens. Nickel refiners had a number of health problems in the past, but current exposures to nickel in the workplace are much lower. Still, caution is taken with nickel refinery dust and especially nickel subsulfide (Ni3S2). Another compound of concern is nickel carbonyl, a highly toxic, volatile liquid used to purify nickel or to produce fine nickel particles. U.S. and international health agencies have set exposure standards for these and other nickel compounds.
Another health issue is contact dermatitis from exposure to nickel. Reactions to nickel alloys in earrings used for pierced ears are the most frequent, but itchy rashes can occur on any body part that comes into prolonged contact with nickel. The European Union has banned earrings with more than 0.05% nickel and some nickel-plated jewelry. The American Academy of Dermatology says that nickel allergies are the most common chemical allergy causing skin problems.
Nickel use continues to grow as new applications are found. Nanotechnology, electronics, and catalysis are areas of exciting nickel research. Use of the metal is rising each year, and the industry is confident about its future. This is one element where you don't have to exaggerate when you say that you're getting your nickel's worth. |
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FIREBALL A 3-mm droplet of nickel-zirconium,heated to incandescence, hovers between electrically charged plates insidethe electrostatic Levitator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
NASA PHOTO |
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Top copper producing companies: Freeport McMoran, Codelco, BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Anglo American, Grupo Mexico, KGHM Polska Miedz, Antofagasta, Norilsk Nickel Mining, Rio Tinto
Top copper producing mines: Escondida, Chuquicamata, Grasberg, Collahuasi, El Teniente, Morenci, Zhezkazgan, Mt Isa, Antamina, Los Pelambres
Top copper producing countries: Chile, U.S.A., Peru, China, Australia, Indonesia, Russia, Canada, Zambia |
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Copper History |
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The use of copper and gold marked the transition from the Stone Age to a more modern way of life. Ancient civilizations could use copper because it is found in its native state on the surface of the ground, because it has a distinctive color, and because it is easily worked.
In addition to the important copper deposits of Cyprus, copper is relatively common around the Mediterranean. It was found in nuggets and masses on the surface of the earth, adjacent to streams, in the walls of canyons. Although exposure to weather changes copper's reddish color to blue-green, it is easy to recognize. Ancient people learned that copper could be shaped by pressure, that is, it is "malleable."
Objects of beaten copper were used by the Chaldeans in the Middle East about 4500 B.C. Copper weapons and ornaments from about the same time have been found in the ruins of Susa, an ancient civilization located in the area of the nation that is now Iran. Native Americans exploited copper in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan perhaps 7000 years ago.
We have no way to know for certain how copper was discovered long ago. We know that humans already recognized gold. Maybe they were looking for other substances like gold. Maybe somebody dropped a piece of rock on some copper, and dented the copper without breaking it. Then, this clever ancient inventor might have realized that pure copper could be hammered into a useful or pretty shape. This special property of copper is called malleability.
Later, another observant person, maybe a potter, accidentally dropped a piece of copper in a fire. This early metal worker learned that the copper became less brittle and easier to shape if hammered after heating. This process is known as tempering.
Discovery of the idea of working copper also occurred in a number of cultures around the Earth. Thanks to the excellent archeological record in the arid southwest of Asia we know that ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, especially the city-states of Sumeria, were among the earliest to invent the use of copper and gold. This area is now in the nation of Iraq. |
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Top zinc producing companies: XStrata Plc, OZ Minerals, Teck Cominco Ltd, Glencore International AG, Hindustan Zinc, Anglo American Plc, Volcan Compania Minera S.A.A., Boliden AB, Votorantim Metais Ltda, Lundin Mining Corp.
Top zinc producing mines: Century, Rampura Agucha, Red Dog, Iscaycruz, Brunswick #12 Mine, Greens Creek Mine, Mt. Isa, Tara Mine, Lisheen, Antamina
Top zinc producing countries: China, Peru, Australia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Kazakhstan, |
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The History of Zinc |
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Centuries before zinc was discovered in the metallic form, its ores were used for making brass and zinc compounds, its ores were used for healing wounds and sore eyes. It is believed that the Romans first made brass in the time of Augustus (20 B.C. – 14 A.D.). In the 13th century Marco Polo described the manufacture of zinc oxide in Persia.
By 1374, zinc was recognized in India as a new metal – the 8th metal known to man at that time. At Zawar, India, both zinc metal and zinc oxide were produced from the 12th to the 16th century. Zinc metal was used to make brass and zinc oxide served medical purposes.
From India, zinc manufacturing moved to China in the 17th century where it developed as an industry to supply the needs of the brass industry.
Zinc was recognized in Europe as a separate metal in the 16th century when Agricola (1490 – 1555) observed that a metal called “zincum” was produced in Slesia and Paracelsus (1493 – 1541) stated clearly that “zincum” was a new metal. In 1743, the first European zinc smelter was established in Bristol in the United Kingdom using a vertical retort procedure. A major technological improvement was achieved with the development of the horizontal retort process in Germany which led to the erection of smelting works in Slesia, Liege, Belgium and Aachen, the Rhineland and the Ruhr areas in Germany. In 1836 hot-dip galvanizing, the oldest anti-corrosion process, was introduced in France. Zinc production in the United States started in 1850.
For about 500 years zinc was produced from its oxide ores before the more abundant sulfides became the major source of supply. On the technological side there was a drastic change in 1916 when the electrolytic process was introduced on a large scale replacing the pyrometallurgical process as the dominating production method. |
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Top lead producing companies: Xtrata Plc, BHP Billiton Ltd, Doe Run Company, Teck Cominco Ltd, Volcan Compania Minera S.A.A., Glencore International AG, OZ Minerals, Hindustan Zinc. Anglo American Plc, Industrias Penoles S.A. de C.V.
Top lead producing mines: Cannigton, Red Dog, Mt. Isa, Lucky Friday Mine, Broken Hill Mine, Greens Creek Mine, Brunswick #12 Mine, Magellan, Century, Black Mountain
Top lead producing countries: Australia, China, USA, Peru, Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Morocco, South Africa, North Korea |
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History of Lead |
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Lead was one of the earliest metals discovered by the human race and was in use by 3000 B.C. The ancient Romans used lead for making water pipes and lining baths, and the plumber who joins and mends pipes takes his name from the Latin word plumbum, meaning lead. Plumbum is also the origin of the terms 'plumb bob' and 'plumb line,' used in surveying and also the chemical symbol for lead, Pb. In medieval times, lead came to be used for roofing, coffins, cisterns, tanks, and gutters, and for statues and ornaments. Another early use of lead was for the strips joining the pieces of colored glass in church windows.
The dull gray color of lead pipes and cables is caused by the oxygen of the air combining with the metal so as to form a very thin film or skin composed of an oxide of lead. Lead is not at all easily corroded, or eaten away. Unlike iron and steel, it does not need protection by painting. Underneath the film, lead is a bright, shiny bluish-white metal. When you scrape it you notice how soft lead is. It is this softness that makes it easy to squeeze or roll lead into different shapes. (reference)
For winemakers in the Roman Empire, nothing but lead would do. When boiling crushed grapes, Roman vintners insisted on using lead pots or lead-lined copper kettles. "For, in the boiling," wrote Roman winemaker Columella, "brazen vessels throw off copper rust which has a disagreeable flavor." Lead’s sweet overtones, by contrast, were thought to add complementary flavors to wine and to food as well. (reference)
The metal enhanced one-fifth of the 450 recipes in the Roman Apician Cookbook, a collection of first through fifth century recipes attributed to gastrophiles associated with Apicius, the famous Roman gourmet. From the Middle Ages on, people put lead acetate or "sugar of lead" into wine and other foods to make them sweeter. Lead touched many areas of Roman life. It made up pipes and dishes, cosmetics and coins, and paints.
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Top tin producing companies: Yunnan Tin Australia TDK Resources Pty Ltd, Minsur S.A., PT Timah, PT Koba Tin, Mineracao Taboca S.A., Estanho de Rondonia SA - CSN
Top tin producing mines: San Rafael, Bangka, Huanuni, Pitinga, Collingwood
Top tin producing countries: China, Indonesia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Russia, Vietnam, DRC, Malaysia, Australia |
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History, description, uses |
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was in 1979, while taking refuge from yet another blizzard in a rather inadequate shelter on top of a Welsh mountain, that the opportunity of digging in a somewhat more exotic location was first mentioned. At the time, I was an undergraduate studying archaeology at Lampeter in mid-Wales, and the new excavation opportunity was a tin mill at Colliford, somewhere in Cornwall. At this time, no British tin mill had ever been properly excavated, but I think it was the thought of six weeks in sunny Cornwall that persuaded me that it would be a good idea to be involved.
I will remember the first three days of that dig for the rest of my life. Dense fog, combined with torrential rain and powerful winds tragically known as the Fastnet Storm, coincided with our arrival. Once the winds had abated, the sun shone, and very rapidly it became apparent as we dissected the mill and the surrounding dressing floors that we were revealing a very complicated and informative story.
The mill, throughout its life, from at least 1507 until around 1600, had crushed tin from the nearby opencast quarry, but it had been abandoned and refurbished on several occasions, each time becoming more efficient. A wide range of artifacts provided an insight into the character of the tin processing operations, and domestic rubbish gave us a glimpse into the lives of the tinners who had worked here. The true complexity of the site only became apparent during the post-excavation process and preparation of the final report. |
Understanding the mill proved challenging and rewarding, and it was during this process that I was smitten and decided I wanted to find out much more about the industry in which this mill had played a part. The landscape around the mill was littered with the earthworks and other structures left by the tinners. The obvious next step was to record and hopefully understand what could only be described as a confused mass of humps and bumps.
So it was on the last day of January 1983 that I set off with a plane table to tackle the earthworks in the valley bottom next to the mill. I really had no idea whether it would be possible or even worthwhile, as nobody else had ever tried to tackle this type of survey. I certainly did not know when I plotted the first point on the table that the results would be so informative that for the next 20 years I would be spending large blocks of time surveying and interpreting tinwork earthworks all over Cornwall and Devon.
The survey work revealed that it was possible to demonstrate exactly how the tinners had used different methods to extract tin. By doing a detailed analysis of the streamwork plans in particular, I could identify the precise methods used to extract the cassiterite and to recognize earthworks of different dates. Much has yet to be achieved regarding the absolute dating of the tinworks, but pollen analysis near the Colliford tin mill indicated that at least part of the tin streamwork was abandoned before 600 to 700 A.D. Many of the surviving streamworks in the southwest of England will be much more recent than this, as most probably belong to the late medieval period (1300 to 1500).
The scrutiny of streamwork earthworks has been the most productive aspect of the detailed survey of tinworking remains, but other types of tinwork lend themselves to this form of examination to a greater or lesser extent. Analyses of the surface workings associated with early forms of mining--including the shallow shafts known as lode-back pits and the opencast quarries known as openworks or beams--have provided a valuable insight into the earliest forms of mining. Together with investigations of the contemporary documentation, the surveys have allowed us to build a remarkable picture of the industrial, technological, and social character of early tin exploitation in Britain. |
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DIGGING DEEP View of the interior of the stamping mill at Colliford. The wheelpit is the water-filled, stone-lined channel on the right. The channel leading under the two near ranging rods carried material in suspension from the stamps situated adjacent to the wheelpit. PHOTO BY DAVID AUSTIN |
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Top aluminum producing companies: Rio Tinto, Alcoa Inc., BHP Billiton, United Company RUSAL, Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd. (Chalco), Norsk Hydro ASA, Dubai Aluminium Co. Ltd., Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C., Century Aluminum Co.
Top bauxite producing mines: Sangaredi, Huntly / Willowdale, Weipa, MRN-Oriximina, Worsley, Gove, Los Pijiguaos, Turgay and Krasno-Oktyabrsky, Panchpatmali Hills
Top bauxite producing countries: Australia, China, Brazil, India, Guinea, Jamaica, Russia, Venezuela, Suriname, Kazakhstan
History :-
Aluminum is the most abundant (8,13%) metallic element in the earth's crust and after oxygen and silicon, the third most abundant of all elements in the crust. Because of its strong affinity to oxygen, it is not found in the elemental state but only in combined forms such as oxides or silicates.
The metal derives its name from alumen, the Latin name for alum. In 1761 L. B. G de Morveau proposed the name alumine for the base in alum, and in 1787 Lavoisier definitely identified it as the oxide of a still undiscovered metal. In 1807 Sir Humphrey Davy proposed the name aluminum for this metal and later agreed to change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter, the name aluminium was adopted to conform to the "ium" ending of most elements, and this spelling is now in general use throughout the world. Aluminum was also the accepted spelling in the United States until 1925 when the American Chemical Society officially reverted to aluminum.
Hans Christian Oersted is now generally credited with having been the first to prepare metallic aluminum. He accomplished this in 1825 by heating anhydrous aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam and distilling off the mercury. Frederick Wöhler improved the process between 1827 and 1845 by substituting potassium for the amalgam and by developing a better method for dehydrating aluminum. In 1854 Henri Sainte-Claire Deville substituted sodium for the relatively expensive potassium and, by using sodium aluminum chloride instead of aluminum chloride, produced the first commercial quantities of aluminum in a pilot plant near Paris. Several plants using essentially this process were subsequently built in Great Britain, but none survived for long the advent in 1886 of the electrolytic process, which has dominated the industry ever since.
The development of the electrolytic process dates back to Sir Humphrey Davy who in 1807 attempted unsuccessfully to electrolyze a mixture of alumina and potash. Later, in 1854 Robert Wilhelm Von Bunsen and Sainte-Claire Deville independently prepared aluminum by electrolysis of fused sodium aluminum chloride, but this process was not exploited for lack of an economic source of electricity. Gramme's invention of the dynamo (in 1886) changed this and paved the way for the invention of the modern process.
In 1866, Charles Martin Hall of Oberlin (Ohio) and Paul L. T. Héroult of France, both of them 22 years old at the time, discovered and patented almost simultaneously the process in which alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and decomposed electrolytically. This reduction process, generally known as the Hall-Héroult process, has successfully withstood many attempts to supplant it; it remains the only method to produce aluminum in commercial quantities. |
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