Aluminium and titanium

Both aluminium and titanium:

• have low density (i.e. they're lightweight).
• are strong
• have a very thin layer of oxide on the surface (look at the diagram to the right). This oxide layer stops air and water getting to the metal, so resists corrosion.
• are abundant in nature (i.e. there's quite a lot around)
• like iron and copper, are found as oxides in ores
• unlike iron, cannot be extracted from their oxides by the method of reduction with carbon.
• are expensive to extract because a lot of energy is needed for this.

Additional properties  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

In addition to the properties listed above, aluminium is:

Uses  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Aluminium cannot be extracted from its oxides by reduction with carbon, because it is more reactive than carbon, so the reduction reaction does not work.

Recycling  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Aluminium is extensively recycled because, apart from being easy to recycle, less energy is needed to recycle it than is needed to extract aluminium from its ore. So recycling it:

Additional properties  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

In addition to the properties listed above, titanium has:

NOTE: Although titanium is a lightweight metal, it is not as light as aluminium.

Uses  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Extraction  ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Titanium cannot be extracted from its oxides by reduction with carbon, because titanium reacts with the carbon (to form titanium carbide), so is impure and brittle.

Titanium extraction needs several stages of processing.