Aluminum

Google image > 2 Al + 3 H 2 O → Al 2 O 3 + 3H 2
 * Aluminum's symbol is Al and its atomic number is 13. It is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal, in the Earth's crust. It has a remarkably low density.
 * Aluminum is a soft, light weight metal. It is used in some cars because of it's light weight and durable nature. It is also used in some electronic devices because it is somewhat easy to obtain and it's durability.Another use is in parts of airplanes and rockets as well as cars, soda cans and even on the surface of glass to make mirrors. Aluminium is remarkable for the metal's low density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates. Aluminum is a reflective metal that is not soluble in water and nontoxic. Aluminium salts are not known to be used by any form of life.
 * Aluminium is oxidized by water to produce hydrogen and heat:


 * History**: It was first produced by a Danish chemist in 1825. The latin name is alumen, and that name was given by LBG Moreveau in the year 1761. Sir Davy Humphry was the man who said it should be named aluminum. It was then names aluminium, so it could end with 'ium'. Then the American Chemical Society named it, in 1925, aluminum. Even though Humphry found it in 1808, it was not until 1919 that the metal could be extracted and used practically.

Aluminum foil can also be used to cover/protect foods to preserve them longer. It can also keep cooked foods hot for sometime to help protect it from becoming bad. Aluminum is used by thousands everyday and is one of the products that can be used over again and be recycled.


 * Atomic Number:** 13
 * Atomic Weight:** 26.9815386
 * Melting Point:** 933.437 K (660.323°C or 1220.581°F)
 * Boiling Point:** 2792 K (2519°C or 4566°F)
 * Density:** 2.70 grams per cubic centimeter
 * Phase at Room Temperature:** Solid
 * Element Classification:** Metal
 * Period Number:** 3
 * Group Number:** 13


 * || **Number of Energy Levels:** 3
 * First Energy Level:** 2
 * Second Energy Level:** 8
 * Third Energy Level:** 3 ||

Isotopes

 * ** Isotope ** || ** Half Life ** ||
 * Al-26 || 730000.0 years ||
 * Al-27 || Stable ||
 * Al-28 || 2.3 minutes ||

Facts

 * Date of Discovery:** 1825
 * Discoverer:** Hans Christian Oersted
 * Name Origin:** From the Latin word //alumen//
 * Uses:** airplanes, soda cans
 * Obtained From:** bauxite
 * Fun Facts**
 * Did you know If you put 24 Aluminum cans under a two ton car it can hold it up.
 * A not so fun fact about Aluminum is that its connected to both breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

Structure of [|trimethylaluminium], a compound that features five-coordinate carbon.

Aluminum is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), and the most abundant metal, in the Earth's crust. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth's solid surface. Aluminum metal is too reactive chemically to occur natively. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminum is bauxite.



Although aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust, it is never found free in nature. All of the earth's aluminum has combined with other elements to form compounds. Two of the most common compounds are alum, such as potassium aluminum sulfate (KAl(SO 4 )2·12H 2 O), and aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ). About 8.2% of the earth's crust is composed of aluminum. Scientists suspected than an unknown metal existed in alum as early as 1787, but they did not have a way to extract it until 1825. Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish chemist, was the first to produce tiny amounts of aluminum. Two years later, Friedrich Wöhler, a German chemist, developed a different way to obtain aluminum. By 1845, he was able to produce samples large enough to determine some of aluminum's basic properties. Wöhler's method was improved in 1854 by Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, a French chemist. Deville's process allowed for the commercial production of aluminum. As a result, the price of aluminum dropped from around $1200 per kilogram in 1852 to around $40 per kilogram in 1859. Unfortunately, aluminum remained too expensive to be widely used.
 * History and Uses:**

Two important developments in the 1880s greatly increased the availability of aluminum. The first was the invention of a new process for obtaining aluminum from aluminum oxide. Charles Martin Hall, an American chemist, and Paul L. T. Héroult, a French chemist, each invented this process independently in 1886. The second was the invention of a new process that could cheaply obtain aluminum oxide from bauxite. Bauxite is an ore that contains a large amount of aluminum hydroxide (Al 2 O 3 ·3H 2 O), along with other compounds. Karl Joseph Bayer, an Austrian chemist, developed this process in 1888. The Hall-Héroult and Bayer processes are still used today to produce nearly all of the world's aluminum.

With an easy way to extract aluminum from aluminum oxide and an easy way to extract large amounts of aluminum oxide from bauxite, the era of inexpensive aluminum had begun. In 1888, Hall formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which is now known as the Aluminum Company of America, or Alcoa. When it opened, his company could produce about 25 kilograms of aluminum a day. By 1909, his company was producing about 41,000 kilograms of aluminum a day. As a result of this huge increase of supply, the price of aluminum fell rapidly to about $0.60 per kilogram.

Today, aluminum and aluminum alloys are used in a wide variety of products: cans, foils and kitchen utensils, as well as parts of airplanes, rockets and other items that require a strong, light material. Although it doesn't conduct electricity as well as copper, it is used in electrical transmission lines because of its light weight. It can be deposited on the surface of glass to make mirrors, where a thin layer of aluminum oxide quickly forms that acts as a protective coating. Aluminum oxide is also used to make synthetic rubies and sapphires for lasers.


 * Estimated Crustal Abundance:** 8.23×104 milligrams per kilogram
 * Estimated Oceanic Abundance:** 2×10-3 milligrams per liter
 * Number of Stable Isotopes:** 1
 * Ionization Energy:** 5.986 eV
 * Oxidation State:** +3
 * **Electron Shell Configuration:** ||  ||   || 1s2 ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 2s2 ||  || 2p6 ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 3s2 ||  || 3p1 ||   ||

__Recycling__ one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or provide enough power to a television for three hours.
 * Interesting Fact About Aluminum:**




 * Chemical Characteristics:**

Corrosion resistance can be excellent due to a thin surface layer of aluminum oxide that forms when the metal is exposed to air, effectively preventing further oxidation. The strongest aluminum alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is also often greatly reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals.

Owing to its resistance to corrosion, aluminum is one of the few metals that retain silvery reflectance in finely powdered form, making it an important component of silver-colored paints. Aluminum mirror finish has the highest reflectance of any metal in the 200–400 nm (UV) and the 3,000–10,000 nm (far IR) regions; in the 400–700 nm visible range it is slightly outperformed by tin and silver and in the 700–3000 (near IR) by silver, gold, and copper.

Aluminum is oxidized by water to produce hydrogen and heat:

2 Al + 3 H2O → Al2O3 + 3H2 This conversion is of interest for the production. Challenges include circumventing the formed oxide layer which inhibits the reaction and the expenses associated with the storage of energy by regeneration of the Al metal.

Stable aluminium is created when hydrogen fuses with magnesium either in large stars or in supernovae. In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant (8.3% by weight) metallic element and the third most abundant of all elements (after oxygen and silicon). Because of its strong affinity to oxygen, it is almost never found in the elemental state; instead it is found in oxides or silicates. Feldspars, the most common group of minerals in the Earth's crust, are aluminosilicates. Native aluminium metal can only be found as a minor phase in low oxygen fugacity environments, such as the interiors of certain volcanoes. Native aluminium has been reported in cold seeps in the northeastern continental slope of the South China Sea and Chen et al. (2011) have proposed a theory of its origin as resulting by reduction from tetrahydroxoaluminate Al(OH)4– to metallic aluminium by bacteria. It also occurs in the minerals beryl, cryolite, garnet, spinel and turquoise. Impurities in Al2O3, such as chromium or iron yield the gemstones ruby and sapphire, respectively. Although aluminium is an extremely common and widespread element, the common aluminium minerals are not economic sources of the metal. Almost all metallic aluminium is produced from the ore bauxite (AlO//x//(OH)3–2//x//). Bauxite occurs as a weathering product of low iron and silica bedrock in tropical climatic conditions. Large deposits of bauxite occur in Australia, Brazil, Guinea and Jamaica and the primary mining areas for the ore are in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Guinea, Indonesia, Jamaica, Russia and Surinam.
 * Natural Occurances:**

Aluminum is recyclable. In fact there is a company called the Aluminum Association. The Aluminum Association works globally to promote aluminum as the most sustainable and recyclable automotive, packaging, and construction material in today’s market. The Association provides leadership to the industry through its programs and services and assists in achieving the industry's environmental, societal, and economic objectives. Member companies operate more than 200 plants in the United States, with many conducting business worldwide

** Halides **
All four trihalides are well known. Unlike the structures of the three heavier trihalides, aluminium fluoride (AlF3) features six-coordinate Al. The octahedral coordination environment for AlF3 is related to the compactness of fluoride ion, six of which can fit around the small Al3+ centre. AlF3 sublimes (with cracking) at 1,291 °C (2,356 °F). With heavier halides, the coordination numbers are lower. The other trihalides are dimeric or polymeric with tetrahedral Al centers. These materials are prepared by treating aluminium metal with the halogen, although other methods exist. Acidification of the oxides or hydroxides affords hydrates. In aqueous solution, the halides often form mixtures, generally containing six-coordinate Al centres, which are feature both halide and aquo ligands. When aluminium and fluoride are together in aqueous solution, they readily form complex ions such as [AlF(H2O)5]2+, AlF3(H2O)3 , and [AlF6]3−. In the case of chloride, polyaluminium clusters are formed such as [Al13O4(OH)24(H2O)12]7+