My book says
Aluminium is extracted from its ore bauxite $\ce{Al2O3.nH2O}$
What does "n" stands for? Does it mean that there is no fixed amount of water in bauxite?
Answer
Background:Chemical formula is short hand representation composition of a substance. There is difference between an ore and a mineral. An ore is an impure form of mineral, so it can't be given exact chemical formula. Whereas a mineral is pure compound(in general, and can be used to obtain pure elements like metals) so it has an exact chemical formula.Minerals which can used to obtain the metal profitably are called ores.All minerals are not ores but all ores are essentially minerals too.
Bauxite is an ore of the mineral called Alumina( Al2O3) which can be used to extract aluminium. So bauxite is group of hydrated aluminum oxides, Al(OH)3 with possible additional Al and (OH) so it can be written as Al2O3.nH2O where n represents that it can have different number of water molecules per Alumina based on concentration of mineral in the ore on an average.
No comments:
Post a Comment