Cambridge IGCSE Chemistry
9.6Extraction of metals
Extraction of metals in Cambridge IGCSE Chemistry: what the syllabus expects you to know, the learning objectives and how to practise.
Subtopic42 practice questions2 lessons
Learning objectives
What the syllabus expects you to be able to do.
- 9.6.1Describe how the ease of obtaining a metal from its ore is related to the metal's position in the reactivity series.
- 9.6.2Describe the extraction of iron from haematite (hematite) in the blast furnace: burning coke to provide heat and carbon dioxide, reducing carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, reducing iron(III) oxide with carbon monoxide, thermally decomposing limestone to calcium oxide and forming slag (symbol equations are not required).
- 9.6.3State that bauxite is the main ore of aluminium and that aluminium is extracted by electrolysis.
- 9.6.4Supplement: state the symbol equations for the reactions in the blast furnace: C + O₂ → CO₂, C + CO₂ → 2CO, Fe₂O₃ + 3CO → 2Fe + 3CO₂, CaCO₃ → CaO + CO₂ and CaO + SiO₂ → CaSiO₃.
- 9.6.5Supplement: describe the extraction of aluminium from purified bauxite (aluminium oxide), including the role of cryolite, why the carbon anodes must be replaced regularly and the electrode reactions with ionic half-equations (details of purifying bauxite are not required).
Lessons
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Extracting aluminium by electrolysis
25 min
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Extracting metals and the blast furnace
30 min
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