Copper Reading Answers

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish orange colour. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewellery, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. 

Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form native metal This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulphide ores, c. 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mould, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC. In the Roman era, copper was mined principally in Cyprus, the origin of the name of the metal, from aes cyprium later corrupted to cuprum. Copper and copper were derived from this, the latter spelling first used around 1530. Commonly encountered compounds are copper salts, which often impart blue or green colours to such minerals as azurite, malachite, and turquoise, and have been used widely and historically as pigments Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidises to form a green Verdigris or patina. Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments Copper compounds are used as bacteriostatic agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the respiratory enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the iron-complexed haemoglobin in fish and other vertebrates

In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, and bone. The adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. Copper does not react with water, but it does slowly react with atmospheric oxygen to form a layer of brown-black copper oxide which, unlike the rust that forms on iron in moist air, shields the underlying A green layer of Verdigris copper carbonate can often be seen 30 old copper structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings and the Statue of Liberty. Copper tarnishes when exposed to some sulphur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulphides