Metals and Alloys in

daily life
Basma Tayyeb
Grade 8
 Introduction
• Metals : are opaque, lustrous elements that are good conductors of heat and electricity.
• An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal.
• Examples of alloys include red gold (gold and copper) white gold (gold and silver), sterling silver (silver
and copper), steel or silicon steel (iron with non-metallic carbon or silicon respectively), solder, brass,
pewter, duralumin, bronze, and amalgams.
• Nickel, cobalt, and chromium are often found
in everyday consumer objects, such as jewelry,
clothing, leather, technological devices, household
items, and other daily-use objects
 Metallic Bonds
• Metallic bond, force that holds atoms together in a metallic substance.
Such a solid consists of closely packed atoms. In most cases, the
outermost electron shell of each of the metal atoms overlaps with a large
number of neighboring atoms. As a consequence, the valence electrons
continually move from one atom to another and are not associated with
any specific pair of atoms. In short, the valence electrons in metals,
unlike those in covalently bonded substances, are nonlocalized, capable
of wandering relatively freely throughout the entire crystal.
• Many of the characteristic properties of metals are attributable to the non-
localized or free-electron character of the valence electrons. This
condition, for example, is responsible for the high electrical conductivity
of metals. The valence electrons are always free to move when an
electrical field is applied.
Physical Pr
 Alloys
• An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal.
• Alloys may have properties that differ from those of the pure metals, such
as increased strength or hardness. In some cases, an alloy may reduce the
overall cost of the material while preserving important properties.
• Alloys are used in a wide variety of applications, from the steel alloys,
used in everything from buildings to automobiles to surgical tools, to
exotic titanium alloys used in the aerospace industry, to beryllium-copper
alloys for non-sparking tools.
Thank you for your attention!