Ore classification introduction

Industrial classification of metals

All metals are divided into two groups : ferrous and non-ferrous.

1. 
   Black metals. These include iron (and its alloys), as well as manganese, vanadium and chromium, since their production is closely related to the smelting of iron and its alloys.
   
2. 
   Non-ferrous metals. They are divided into the following groups:
   

1. 
   heavy non-ferrous metals, which are divided into main ones - copper, nickel, lead, zinc, tin, which play a leading role in the national economy, and minor ones - cadmium, cobalt, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, mercury, which are produced in significantly smaller quantities compared to the main ones metals;
   
2. 
   light non-ferrous metals are also divided into basic ones - aluminum, magnesium, titanium, sodium and less commonly used - beryllium, lithium, barium, calcium, strontium, potassium;
   
3. 
   noble metals - gold, silver, platinum and platinum group metals - osmium, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, palladium;
   
4. 
   rare metals - are divided into a number of groups:
   

1. 
   refractory - tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum, niobium, zirconium, vanadium;
   

b) scattered - thallium, gallium, germanium, indium, rhenium, hafnium, rubidium, cesium and others;
c) rare earths - lanthanum and lanthanides;
d) radioactive - polonium, radium, uranium, thorium, actinium, plutonium, neptunium and other transuranic metals.
The most important industrial metal is iron, which in its pure form and alloys with carbon and other elements belongs to the group of ferrous metals. The alloys of this group are steel, cast iron and ferroalloys. Of the total mass of metals smelted around the world, about 94% are ferrous. They represent the main structural material in mechanical and instrument making and one of the main ones in the construction industry, transport and communications.
All other metals and their alloys belong to the group of non-ferrous metals: they are usually divided into light (density up to 3 g/cm ³ ) and heavy. There are also noble and rare metals.
Of the non-ferrous metals, aluminum, copper, magnesium, lead, zinc, tin, and titanium are of industrial importance.
But the cost of non-ferrous metals compared to ferrous ones is high, so in all cases where this is permissible, they try to replace them with ferrous metals or non-metallic materials. In addition to the above, chromium, nickel, manganese, molybdenum, cobalt, vanadium, tungsten, zirconium, tantalum, niobium, rhenium, indium, silver, platinum, gold, germanium, selenium, tellurium are also used industrially.
Some metals are widely used in a technically pure form (with a low content of impurities), for example, iron, copper and aluminum in electrical and radio engineering. Other metals, for example, tantalum, niobium, hafnium, zirconium, silicon are used in ultrapure form, i.e. millionths of a percent of all impurities or even at the level of individual impurity atoms, in instrument engineering, nuclear engineering, and computer technology.
The use of metal alloys, of which there are tens of thousands of grades, is incomparably wider and more diverse.
Metals are obtained from ores
Ore is a natural mineral raw material containing metals or their compounds in quantity and form suitable for industrial use. An ore is a collection of minerals.