Product Description

Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu (from Latin: cuprum) and atomic number *9. It is a soft, malleable and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a reddish-orange color. It is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys.

Copper is found as a pure metal in nature, and this was the source of the first metal to be used by humans, ca. 8,**0 BC; it was the first metal to be smelted from its ore, ca. 5,**0 BC; it was the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, ca. 4,**0 BC; and it was the first metal to be purposefully alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, ca. 3,**0 BC.

Most copper is mined or extracted as copper sulfides from large open pit mines in porphyry copper deposits that contain 0.4 to 1.0% copper. Examples include Chuquicamata in Chile, Kivu in DRC Congo, United States and El Chino Mine in New Mexico, United States. The amount of copper in use is increasing and the quantity available is barely sufficient to allow all countries to reach developed world levels of usage.

Copper has been in use at least *0,**0 years, but more than *5% of all copper ever mined and smelted has been extracted since ***0, and more than half was extracted in only the last *4 years. As with many natural resources, the total amount of copper on Earth is vast (around ***4 tons just in the top kilometer of Earth's crust, or about 5 million years' worth at the current rate of extraction). However, only a tiny fraction of these reserves is economically viable, given present-day prices and technologies. Various estimates of existing copper reserves available for mining vary from *5 years to *0 years, depending on core assumptions such as the growth rate. Recycling is a major source of copper in the modern world. Because of these and other factors, the future of copper production and supply is the subject of much debate, including the concept of peak copper, analogous to peak oil.

The price of copper has historically been unstable,  weakening global demand and a steep fall in commodity prices.

Like aluminium, copper is **0% recyclable without any loss of quality, regardless of whether it is in a raw state or contained in a manufactured product. In volume, copper is the third most recycled metal after iron and aluminium. It is estimated that *0% of the copper ever mined is still in use today.According to the International Resource Panel's Metal Stocks in Society report, the global per capita stock of copper in use in society is ***5 kg. Much of this is in more-developed countries.

The process of recycling copper is roughly the same as is used to extract copper but requires fewer steps. High-purity scrap copper is melted in a furnace and then reduced and cast into billets and ingots; lower-purity scrap is refined by electroplating in a bath of sulfuric acid.

Uses: Wire and Cables, Electric Motors, Architecture, Antibiofouling Application and so on.