The Most Widely Used Natural Metals in the World

There are many metals that are used in things we see all around us: without metal, modern society could not exist. Of course, some metals are used extensively, while others, although important, are not used as much. The following are the most used metals in the world.

Iron and Manganese
These two metals go hand in hand. This is because they are the main components of steel. There are different types of steel on the market, but the main attraction to steel is that it is lighter than iron and much stronger. In fact, it is manganese used with carbon that produces steel from iron metal. Steel is used in buildings, bridges, cars, and any other application where strength and durability are needed.

Aluminum
This metal is known to many people because of soda pop cans, but its value in aviation is the most important to society. Aluminum is a strong metal, but it is also light weight; therefore, it is used as the primary metal to build aircraft. In fact, without aluminum, there would be no modern aviation. There are different needs that manufacturers have in aluminum. Examples are the characteristics of corrosion, temperature and tensile strength; therefore, there are many aluminum alloys on the market. One of the most popular is the 2219 alloy. This combines a small amount of copper to the aluminum to produce a much stronger metal than aluminum is in its purest form.

Copper
Most people think of pennies when they think of copper, but this important metal has many great uses. The most notable is for use as a conductor in the world of electronics and electricity. The most important product is wire used to conduct electricity. Although there are many types of wire, most of them have copper or a copper alloy as the basic metal. The reason for this is the outstanding conductive properties that copper has. It is true that there are a couple of metals with better conductive characteristics, such as silver, but they are too expensive to be used in common applications Copper has the best combination of conductivity versus cost among all of the metals.

These metals are as important today as they have ever been. Engineers continue to work on the development of alloys to improve performance of these metals, and you can also see the importance of these metals because they are always in demand to be recycled.