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The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties.All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.
Most pure metals are either too soft, brittle, or chemically reactive for practical use. Combining different ratios of metals and other elements in alloys modifies the properties to produce desirable characteristics, for instance more ductile, harder, resistant to corrosion, or have a more desirable color and luster.
Also, image contrast of microstructures at relatively low magnifications, e.g., <500X, is far better with the LOM than with the scanning electron microscope (SEM), while transmission electron microscopes (TEM) generally cannot be utilized at magnifications below about 2000 to 3000X. LOM examination is fast and can cover a large area.
Metals are insoluble in water or organic solvents, unless they undergo a reaction with them. Typically, this is an oxidation reaction that robs the metal atoms of their itinerant electrons, destroying the metallic bonding. However metals are often readily soluble in each other while retaining the metallic character of their bonding.
Metallography allows the metallurgist to study the microstructure of metals. A micrograph of bronze revealing a cast dendritic structure Al-Si microstructure. Microstructure is the very small scale structure of a material, defined as the structure of a prepared surface of material as revealed by an optical microscope above 25× magnification. [1]
Physical metallurgy is one of the two main branches of the scientific approach to metallurgy, which considers in a systematic way the physical properties of metals and alloys. It is basically the fundamentals and applications of the theory of phase transformations in metal and alloys. [1]
Heavy metals is a controversial and ambiguous term [2] for metallic elements with relatively high densities, atomic weights, or atomic numbers.The criteria used, and whether metalloids are included, vary depending on the author and context and has been argued should not be used.
The electrical and thermal conductivity of alloys is usually lower than that of the pure metals. The physical properties, such as density, reactivity, Young's modulus of an alloy may not differ greatly from those of its base element, but engineering properties such as tensile strength, [5] ductility, and shear strength may be substantially ...