Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Ĭommonly encountered compounds are copper(II) salts, which often impart blue or green colors to such minerals as azurite, malachite, and turquoise, and have been used widely and historically as pigments.Ĭopper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green patina of compounds called verdigris. Coper ( Old English) and copper were derived from this, the later spelling first used around 1530. In the Roman era, copper was mined principally on Cyprus, the origin of the name of the metal, from aes cyprium (metal of Cyprus), later corrupted to cuprum (Latin). 4000 BC and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 5000 BC the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement.Ĭopper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form ( native metals). A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from Latin: cuprum) and atomic number 29.
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