From Hydrogen to Tellurium - ALUMINIUM

Aluminium


In the 13th spot we have an element that is familiar to most of us - Aluminium, with its chemical symbol Al. And you have guessed it, Aluminium has 13 electrons - 2 in the inner shell, 8 in the middle one and 3 in the outer. To fill the outer shell you know by now that it needs another 5 electrons but Aluminium normally forms compounds with 3 bonds, just pairing up its outer electrons.

So what does it look like? Well Aluminium is a silvery white metal. It is light and non-magnetic. It is very plentiful in the earth's crust but is not needed by either plants or animals for life. As far as we know it is not bad for you or poisonous but there are some people who think it might not be good for you. There is more research going on to find out more about this.


Although it is plentiful in the earth's crust it isn't found as lumps of Aluminium metal but as part of various minerals. Scientists extract the Aluminium from there minerals to get the material we know so well. 


We use it for lots of things. One of the important uses children know about is in drink cans. Have you noticed that they are made from a different material than baked bean tins? It is also used in window frames, in cars, engines and in some countries they use it for their coins.
  


There have been times in history when Aluminium was considered to be very valuable, more valuable even than gold, and in those days it was used to make jewellery.

It costs a lot of money and uses a lot of energy to extract Aluminium from the earth so these days we recycle our Aluminium. For every €100 it would cost to extract Aluminium from the earth we can recycle the same amount for €5 so it is a very good idea to do this - saving money and energy.

Experiment of the week: The Magic Tilting Can

You will need:

One empty 330ml drink can

Water

What to do:

Tilt the can over and see if it will balance on the rim at the bottom edge. You should find that it tips over and won't balance.

Pour about 100 mls of water into the can and try again carefully tilting the can right onto the rim. 

It balances!

How does this happen? Post your explanations and photos below.