Zinc.

Zinc is a rather plastic silvery-white metal. At room temperature, it is brittle, when the plate is bent, the crackling of crystallites is heard (usually stronger than the “cry of tin”). At 100-150 °C, zinc is plastic. Impurities, even minor ones, dramatically increase the fragility of zinc.

Use of zinc:

• Galvanizing - 45-60%
• In medicine (zinc oxide as an antiseptic) – 10%
• Production of alloys - 10%
• Production of rubber tires - 10%
• Oil paints - 10%

Pure metallic zinc is used to restore noble metals mined by underground leaching (gold, silver). In addition, zinc is used to extract silver, gold (and other metals) from rough lead in the form of zinc intermetallides with silver and gold (so-called "silver foam"), which are then processed by conventional refining methods.

It is used to protect steel from corrosion (galvanizing surfaces that are not subject to mechanical influences, or metallization for bridges, containers, metal structures). It is also used as a material for a negative electrode in chemical current sources, that is, in batteries and accumulators, for example: manganese-zinc cell, silver-zinc battery (EMF 1.85 V, 150 Wh/kg, 650 Wh/dm?, low resistance and colossal discharge currents), mercury-zinc cell (EMF 1,35 V, 135 Wh/kg, 550-650 Wh/dm?), dioxysulphate element, iodate-zinc, 95/dm, V-zinc, 2-1-1, V-xinc, 0-18-cell, etc. The role of zinc in zinc-air batteries is very important, in recent years they have been intensively developed on the basis of a zinc-air system - batteries for computers (laptops) and in this area significant success has been achieved (capacity and resource are greater than that of lithium batteries, less than 3 times the cost), as well as this system is very promising for starting engines (lead battery - 55 Wh / kg, zinc air - 220-300 Wh / kg) and for electric vehicles (mileage up to 900 km). It is part of many solid solders to reduce their melting point. Zinc is an important component of brass.

Alloys of zinc with aluminum and magnesium (TsAM, ZAMAK) due to the relatively high mechanical and foundry qualities are very widely used in mechanical engineering, in particular - in weapons (from the alloy ZAMAK often cast gun shutters, especially designed for the use of weak or traumatic cartridges).