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Minerals can be common but infeasible for extraction. Aluminum is one of the most common elements but we extract it just from bauxite
by legulere 3y ago
Minerals can be common but infeasible for extraction. Aluminum is one of the most common elements but we extract it just from bauxite
- Ringz 3y agoJust like uranium.
- Tuna-Fish 3y agoWe extract aluminum only from bauxite because it's slightly (think 5%) less expensive to refine it from bauxite than the next class of materials. If all of world's bauxite reserves ran dry, we would move to the next best sources, and this would impact aluminum prices less than typical yearly variations in electricity costs near smelters. Nearly all aluminum minerals are potential ores for aluminum, the only question is how much other, undesirable material (mostly silica) you need to remove. Bauxite is nice because nature did a lot of the early separation process steps (slightly acidic rains washed away silica over millennia).