Eli5: I have a piece of metal in front of me. How can I determine wich material this is.

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The question is only metaphorical tho, what are the ways to identify some physical “metals” from other ones ?

In: Chemistry

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The flame test. If you hold a sufficiently thin piece of metal over a flame then the colour of the flame can tell you what metal it is. (Copper burns green, iron burns yellow, magnesium burns white).

Some metals are not magnetic. (Copper, aluminium, zinc).

Each metal has a different melting point too. Eg. would be liquid at room temperature.

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