Background | Name | Sources | Uses | Substitutes and Alternative Sources
Zinc: Used as protective coating on steel, as die casting, as an alloying metal with copper to make brass, and as chemical compounds in rubber and paints, used as sheet zinc and for galvanizing iron, electroplating, metal spraying, automotive parts, electrical fuses, anodes, dry cell batteries, fungicides, nutrition (essential growth element), chemicals, roof gutters, engravers' plates, cable wrappings, organ pipes, in pennies, as sacrificial anodes used to protect ship hulls from galvanic action, in catalysts, in fluxes, in phosphors, and in additives to lubricating oils and greases. Zinc oxide: in medicine, in paints, as an activator and accelerator in vulcanizing rubber, as an electrostatic and photoconductive agent in photocopying. Zinc dust: for primers, paints, sherardizing, precipitation of noble metals, removal of impurities from solution in zinc electrowinning. Zinc is mined in about 40 countries with China the leading producer, followed by Australia, Peru, Canada, and the United States. In the U.S. mine production mostly comes from Alaska, Tennessee, and Missouri. The sample photo shows sphalerite, a zinc sulfide.