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FAQ -
Copper |
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Copper Alloys |
Copper Exchanges |
Copper History |
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Copper Markets |
Copper Properties |
Copper Mining |
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Life Cycle Data for Copper Products |
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Copper Alloys |
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Copper
Alloys |
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- Over
400 copper alloys are in use today.
- Brass is an alloy of copper and
zinc.
- Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, aluminum, silicon,
and beryllium.
- Copper-nickel and copper-silver alloys are important
metals in today's world.
The industrial importance of copper in the 20th Century has
been extended by the ease with which it combines with other
metals. Tin and zinc have always been the principal alloying
elements, but there are now many others - aluminum,
beryllium, chromium, manganese, etc. - which form alloys
with special mechanical and physical properties.
Alloys containing copper fall into main types: Copper-base
alloys, such as brass, tin bronze and aluminum bronze, in
which copper itself is the predominant element; and
Copper-bearing alloys, such as certain aluminum alloys,
high-duty alloys to resist severe corrosion, and steels and
cast irons which are improved by small additions of copper.
The proprietary alloy 'Monel', a mixture of copper and
larger amounts of nickel, occupies an intermediate field
between these two main classes. |
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Copper Exchanges |
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Copper Exchanges |
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  Copper
producers (i.e., mining companies) sell their production to customers, who transform the
copper into various shapes and alloys. The copper is then
sold to downstream fabricators, who manufacture a variety of
end-use products. The copper producers and their customers
come together at commodity exchanges, which provide all of
the mechanisms and facilities needed to trade copper.
Copper is traded on three commodity exchanges: The London
Metal Exchange (LME), the Commodities Exchange Division of
the New York Mercantile Exchange (COMEX/NYMEX), and the
Shanghai Metal Exchange (SHME). On the LME, copper is traded
in 25-tonne lots and quoted in US dollars per tonne. On
COMEX, copper is traded in lots of 25,000 pounds and quoted
in US cents per pound. On the SHME, copper is traded in lots
of 5 tonnes and is quoted in Renminbi per tonne.
The role of the exchanges is to facilitate the process of
settling prices. Prices are settled by bid and offer,
reflecting the market's perception of supply and demand of
the commodity on a particular day. The exchanges establish a
price for the present day, called the spot price, and a
price for some specified time in the future, called the
future price. The exchanges allow for trading futures and
options contracts, which enable producers and consumers to
fix a price in the future, thereby providing a hedge against
price variations.
In this process, the participation of speculators, who are
ready to buy the risk of price variation in exchange for
monetary reward, gives liquidity to the market. A futures or
options contract defines the quality of the product, size of
the lot, delivery dates, delivery warehouses, and other
aspects related to the trading process. The existence of
futures contracts also allows producers and their clients to
agree on different price settling schemes to accommodate
different interests.
Commodities exchanges also provide for warehousing
facilities that enable market participants to make or take
physical delivery of copper, in accordance with each
exchange's criteria.
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Copper History |
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| Copper History |
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One of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls found in Israel is made
of copper instead of fragile animal skins. The scroll
contains clues to a still undiscovered treasure.
- Archeologists have recovered a portion of a water plumbing
system from the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. After 5,000
years, the copper tubing was still in serviceable condition.
- A copper frying pan at the University of Pennsylvania's
museum has been dated to be more than 50 centuries old.
- When Columbus sailed to America, his ships (Nina, Pinta,
and Santa Maria) had copper skins below the water line. The
copper sheathing extended hull life and protected against
barnacles and other types of biofouling. Today, most
sea-going vessels use a copper-based paint for hull
protection.
Archaeological evidence indicates that copper was used as
far back as 10,000 years ago in western Asia. During the
prehistoric Chalcolithic Period, societies discovered how to
extract and use copper to produce ornaments and implements.
As early as the 3rd-4th Millennium BC, copper was actively
extracted from Spain's Huelva region. Around 2500 BC, the
discovery of useful properties of copper-tin alloys led to
the Bronze Age.
It has been documented that Israel's Timna Valley provided
copper for the Pharaohs. Papyrus records from ancient Egypt
reveal that copper was used to treat infections and
sterilize water. The island of Cyprus is known to have
supplied much of the copper needed for the empires of
ancient Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome.
While the Greeks during Aristotle's era were familiar with
brass, it was not until Augustus' Imperial Rome that brass
became abundantly used. In South America, the pre-Columbian
Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations exploited copper, as
well as gold and silver. During the Middle Ages, copper and
bronze flourished in China, India, and Japan.
The discoveries and inventions in the late 18th and early
19th Centuries by Ampere, Faraday, and Ohm propelled copper
into a new era. Demonstrating excellent electrical
conducting and heat transfer characteristics, copper played
a pivotal role in launching the Industrial Revolution.
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Copper Markets |
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Copper
Markets |
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 Economic,
technological, and societal factors influence the supply and
demand for copper. In the last 100 years, industrial demand
for refined copper has increased from 494,000 metric tonnes
to over 19 million metric tonnes. As world population
continues to expand, demand for copper tends to increase,
while remaining sensitive to
variances in economic cycles, changes in technology, and
competition between materials for use in applications.
As society's needs for copper increases, new mines and
plants are developed and existing operations are expanded.
In times of market surplus, existing operations can be
scaled back or closed down, and planned expansions can be
put on hold.
More developed regions of the world use copper as an
important component of their infrastructures. But as less
developed regions expand their infrastructures, copper will
help to form the building blocks required to increase living
standards. |
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Copper Mining |
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Copper Properties |
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Copper Properties |
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Physical
Properties of Copper:
• Malleable and Ductile
• Excellent Electrical Conductor
• Excellent Alloying Characteristics
• Non-Magnetic
• Essential Nutrient to Life
• Resistant to Corrosion
• Machinable
• Formable
• Excellent Heat Transfer Characteristics
• Durable
• Recyclable
Specific Properties of Copper:
• Chemical Symbol: Cu
• Atomic Number: 29
• Atomic Weight: 63.54
• Density: 8960 kg m(-3)
• Melting Point: 1356K
• Specific Heat at 293K: 0.383kJkg(-1)K(-1)
• Thermal Conductivity: 394W m(-1) K(-1)
• Electrical Conductivity (%International Annealed Copper
Standard): 100%
• Electrical Resistivity: 1.673x10(-8) ohm-m
• Crystal Structure: Face Centered Cubic
Forms of Copper:
Copper is shipped to fabricators mainly as cathode, wire
rod, billet, cake (slab), or ingot. Through extrusion,
drawing, rolling, forging, melting, electrolysis, or
atomization, fabricators can form wire, rod, tube, sheet,
plate, strip, castings, powder, and other shapes. These
copper and copper-alloys are then shipped to manufacturing
plants that make products to meet society's needs.
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Life Cycle Data for
Copper Products |
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Life Cycle Data for Copper Products |
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 Particularly
in the building and construction sector, there is a
steadily increasing demand from material specifiers and
users, as well as from regulators, NGOs and research
institutes for
up to date life cycle information on competing
materials.
Until now, this information has largely been provided by
third party consultants and academics, based on models
and public literature sources. As a result, the
currently available life cycle data for copper products
is extremely varied and not sufficiently representative
of the reality.
The copper industry has responded to this market need by
developing up to date life cycle data for its tube,
sheet and wire products. The information has been
prepared in cooperation with recognised life cycle
practitioners, using international methodologies (ISO
standards), leading software (GaBi), and proprietary
production data collected from across the copper
industry. |
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