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Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form. This means that copper is a native metal. This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. 8000 BC.
Gold, silver, and copper are quite soft metals and so are easily damaged in daily use as coins. Precious metal may also be easily abraded and worn away through use. In their numismatic functions these metals must be alloyed with other metals to afford coins greater durability. The alloying with other metals makes the resulting coins harder ...
Copper is the electrical conductor in many categories of electrical wiring. [3] [4] Copper wire is used in power generation, power transmission, power distribution, telecommunications, electronics circuitry, and countless types of electrical equipment. [5] Copper and its alloys are also used to make electrical contacts.
The characteristic properties of elemental metals and nonmetals are quite distinct, as shown in the table below. Metalloids, straddling the metal-nonmetal border , are mostly distinct from either, but in a few properties resemble one or the other, as shown in the shading of the metalloid column below and summarized in the small table at the top ...
Beryllium copper (BeCu), also known as copper beryllium (CuBe), beryllium bronze, and spring copper, is a copper alloy with 0.5–3% beryllium. [1] Copper beryllium alloys are often used because of their high strength and good conductivity of both heat and electricity. [2] It is used for its ductility, weldability in metalworking, and machining ...
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloids (such as arsenic or silicon).
Native copper is an uncombined form of copper that occurs as a natural mineral. Copper is one of the few metallic elements to occur in native form, although it most commonly occurs in oxidized states and mixed with other elements. Native copper was an important ore of copper in historic times and was used by pre-historic peoples.
Example of a copper alloy object: a Neo-Sumerian foundation figure of Gudea, circa 2100 BC, made in the lost-wax cast method, overall: 17.5 x 4.5 x 7.3 cm, probably from modern-day Iraq, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component.