Copper
Copper
Copper has been used by human beings for at least 7,000 years, and it is considered to be the first metal used by man in any quantity. With its copper reserves, Armenia was amongst the countries supplying copper to early civilizations as early as 60 centuries ago. The history of copper teaches us that the Sumerian city-states, being the first great metal-using civilization, drew their first supplies of copper from that treasury of metal deposits, the mountainous country around Lake Van in Armenia.
Copper is, still, by far the most important metal nowadays. Although iron became the basic metal of every Western civilization from Rome onwards, it was the copper metals which were used when a combination of strength and durability was required. The ability to resist corrosion ensured that copper and its principal alloys, bronze and brass, remained as functional as well as decorative materials during the Middle Ages and the successive centuries through the Industrial Revolution and on to the present day.
Copper sheets are used in cooking utensils and in roofs. Copper tubes are used to make pipes for plumbing and carrying natural gas. Copper wire is used to carry electric current. Extruded copper, that is, copper that has been squeezed through a hole, forms rods, hinges, tubes, and door handles.
Copper metals are playing an increasingly vital part in many branches of modern technology. The ductility of copper, which led to its use for water piping in ancient Egypt, is illustrated by the countless thousands of miles of copper tube in contemporary plumbing and heating systems: the corrosion resistance of copper, which induced the Romans to use it for sheathing the roof of the Pantheon, is today verified by the thousands of copper roofs on modern buildings large and small; and the electrical conductivity of copper, which was utilized by Michael Faraday in his epoch-making experiments, remains the key to modern power generation.
Copper is also an essential material of the future. Solar heating, large-scale desalination of water, the linear motor are all innovations where copper will make an increasingly important contribution. The known reserves of copper ore are ample for all envisaged requirements, and continuous metallurgical research promises to provide new alloys possessing even superior properties to meet the exacting demands of the technology of the 21st Century.
About 16 mln tons of copper is being produced annually, with the largest producing countries being Chile, United States, China, Japan, Russia. We, at the Armenian Copper Programme cjsc, provide a modest contribution to the world production of copper. We are confident that the skills and resources the people working for ACP possess are a good ground to keep our contribution to the world copper market growing.
Properties of Copper
Copper is Atomic Number 29, that is, an atom of copper has 29 protons. The Atomic Weight is 63.54. The Atomic Symbol is Cu.
Copper is in column IB of the Periodic Table of the Elements, above Silver (Ag) and Gold (Au). Like silver and gold, copper is soft (with a Moh's hardness of 2.5 to 3, that is, harder than a fingernail, but softer than a steel pocketknife). The surface has a metallic luster. With a specific gravity of 8.2 (based on the density of 8.2 g/cm3), it is far denser than water with a specific gravity of 1, or sulfur, with a specific gravity of just over 2, or carbon in the mineral graphite (2.23). Silver, however, is below copper in column IB, and so it is denser (10.5) and gold, even lower, is far denser at 19. When copper combines with other elements, it has a charge of either +1 (called "cuprous") or +2 (called "cupric"). The melting point of copper is 1083.4 degrees Centigrade. Liquid copper boils at 2567 degrees Centigrade.
Like gold and silver, copper is malleable: it can be bent and shaped without cracking, when either hot or cold. It can be rolled into sheets as thin as 1/20 of a mm. Copper also is ductile, as it can be drawn out into thin wire. A copper bar 10 cm thick can be heated, rolled, then drawn into a round wire 20 million times longer than the original bar, and thinner than a human hair.
Copper is second only to silver in its ability to conduct electricity. Besides electricity, copper also is an excellent conductor of heat, making it an important metal in cookware, refrigerators, and radiators. Copper is resistant to corrosion.
Lastly, copper is naturally beautiful - apart from gold it is the only other coloured metal.