Metals and Magnets

Metals and magnets used to make many common modern machines often fulfill veryrigid specifications. These specifications often relate to their ability to be molded intodesired shape; electrical conductivity or magnetic susceptibility. Thanks to the researchefforts of millions of scientists during the past century. Today very often we have achoice in selecting such materials. Metals and magnets abound everywhere around us.They are the essential constituents of modern civilization. No wonder, every sciencestudent is required know about them, but still as usual several doubts about them do persist. For example:

Metals

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Mercury is a metal but why is it found in liquid state?.

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Even though it is a liquid, why does mercury not wet the wood, floor or iron?

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Why can't we make precious elements like gold, platinum, uranium etc. by placing electrons, neutrons protons into other elements?

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Do all the metals exhibit the photoelectric effect?

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Why are the TV antennas made of aluminum and not of any other metal or anon-metal?

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Why do the copper and bronze utensils turn green or blue if they are kept out for quite some time?

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A piece of wood catches fire but a piece of iron doesn't. Why?

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When electricity is passed through copper wire, does the copper atoms get ionized to Cu++ions?

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When we heat a metal why does it become red?

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Why does an iron nail get a copper coating on its surface, if kept for sometime in copper sulfate solution?

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Why do copper; aluminum or silver do not become superconductors, thoughthey are good conductor of heat electricity, but poor metals like Tantalum lead are very good superconductors?

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When we temper soft iron why does it become hard?

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Why do we use only copper wire in a dynamo to produce electric current, whynot any other material?

Metals are chemical elements which share a set of physical and chemical properties.For example, all metals reflect light and have shiny appearance. They also are goodconductors of electricity and heat. Most metals are malleable -- that is, they can be

hammered into thin sheets. Most metals are also ductile, which means that they can bedrawn into wires. But being a solid is definitely not a prerequisite for an element to beclassified as a metal. One should therefore not be surprised to discover that liquidmercury is a metal too. In fact mercury is not the only metal which is in the liquid stateat room temperature; gallium and cesium also have melting points around 30 degreesCelsius. In order to wet the surface of another substance, all that is required of a liquidis that its atoms (or molecules) must be strongly attracted towards the atoms(molecules) of the other substance. The atoms of mercury do not have stronginteraction with the cellulose molecules in a piece of wood or the atoms of iron henceit does not wet their surface.Although it is true that in principle the atoms of any element can betransformed into atoms of another element by nuclear transformations, in practice it isoften so expensive that it is not even worth trying. Often the energy required to carryout the reaction is too high, or the nuclear reaction invariably results in a mixture of isotopes of several elements, which besides being radioactive, cannot be separated bynormal chemical processes. It is therefore not economical to prepare gold, silver or platinum by bombarding other elements like copper or aluminum with other atoms or subatomic particles.The removal of electrons from a metal by irradiation with light is knownas the photoelectric effect. This requires that the energy quanta delivered by the lightused for irradiation exceeds the energy which holds some electrons inside the lattice of atoms of the metal. The range of energy quanta of visible light is rather limited and isnot be sufficient to remove electrons from all metals. It is for this reason only a fewmetals, e.g., germanium and cesium show photoelectric effect.The choice of a particular metal for making a particular product is oftendictated by several considerations such as ease of fabrication, durability and cost.. Thecost of a particular metal depends on the relative abundance of its ores and the cost of extracting the metal from the ore. Thus aluminum, which nowadays is among thecheaper metals, used to be considered a precious metal during the past century despitethe fact that its ores are amongst the most abundant. Only after economical methods of its refining were discovered, that it became so cheap.The primary requirement for making a TV antenna is a metal tube which can be easily bent. Aluminum is preferred for making TV antennas, because it is cheaper (than most other elements except iron) and also corrosion resistant (while iron or steeltubes are not). In contrast, copper wires are often used for coils in electric motors.This is so because copper is much more ductile than aluminum and the electricalconductivity of copper is also higher than that of aluminum. More compact and energyefficient electric motors or dynamos can therefore be designed using copper coils.Aluminum wires are nevertheless used nowadays in several brands of ceiling fans or the ballast for tube-light.

The conduction of electricity through a metal is normally explained in terms of a model for the binding of atoms in its lattice. According to this model, the atoms of ametal are bound together by the so called metallic bond, whereby the electrons fromeach atom are pooled together and fill up energy levels for the entire lattice. Theelectrons in the highest occupied energy levels are responsible for the conduction of electric current through a metal. If these levels are not totally filled up, electrons inthese levels can be excited easily and they can move around the lattice freely. The freemovement of the electrons is responsible for the conduction of electricity. Sinceconduction of electricity involves only movement of electrons through the wire, thereis no question of loss of electrons from atoms or the formation of ions e.g. Cu++incase of copper.When a piece of solid metal is heated, its atoms start vibrating more violently.If the metal has a sufficiently high melting point so that it does not melt, above acertain temperature the energy of these vibrations is sufficient to excite the electrons inthe highest occupied energy levels to higher levels. These excited electrons can oftenemit their excess energy in the form of light radiation. The colour of the light radiateddepends on the energy radiated. Thus we can explain why a piece of iron when heatedto a high temperature looks red.It is not true that iron does not burn, we often see rail wagons or ironcomponents of a house on fire. A substance is said to burn when it reacts with another element (like oxygen or chlorine) with the simultaneous evolution of heat (whichsustain the process of burning). Wood burns at a relatively low temperature, but ironcan also similarly react with oxygen to form oxides albeit at a much higher temperature. However, there are differences, burning of wood, as we all know, isaccompanied by the production of some gases which at high temperatures emit light --a flame. It is also self sustaing as the heat evolved by the combustion of a small portion is sufficient to promote the combustion of the rest. Burning of iron, on theother hand, does not generate a flame, because no gas is evolved in the reaction. Alsothe combustion of iron may not self sustaining in a small fire.When an iron nail is dipped in a copper sulfate solution, the copper ions in thesolution have a choice. They can either remain as ions in the solution or they canextract a few electrons from the iron nail and in the process get transformed intoneutral atoms deposited on the surface of the nail. It so happens that Nature favors thelatter process. Hence, it is the copper from the solution which gets deposited on theiron nail. Similar electrochemical process is possible for many other pairs of atoms.When copper is exposed to air, which contains oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water, itcan react with them to form basic copper carbonate, which is green in colour similarlyin the presence of some sulfur dioxide some basic copper sulfate (bluish green) isformed.