is brass a compound or a mixture?

Question

ANSWER QUICKLY please =]

and could you explain why please

And if it's a compound, wouldn't the combination of the copper and zinc be a chemical change, and if its a mixure, wouldn't the process of combining the copper and zinc be physical?

Ok, if it's a compound, then wouldn't the process of combining Copper and Zinc to make Brass be a chemical change?

Thanks, i know it's a mixture now. The person who said it was a compound and then put a Wiki excerpt that said it was a mixture must be "special"

Answer 1

Compund, and yes combining two elements make a chemical change. I just had this question in class today.

Answer 2

It is a mixture of copper and zinc. But metals do bond by what is termed a metallic bond. You can picture a metallic bond as a "sea" of mobile electrons that keep the positively charged metal nuclei together.

A compound technically is a chemical substance with a FIXED RATIO determining the composition and where the atoms are chemically bonded. Since the copper to zinc ratio can be changed as desired, brass is automatically not a compound.

Answer 3

Is Brass A Mixture

Answer 4

Everyone else is wrong. It's an alloy of copper and zinc. Alloys are mixtures. There is no chemical bond between the zinc and copper atoms; they are simply mixed together. Compounds are made up of two or more CHEMICALLY BONDED elements.

Answer 5

Compound: a heterogeneous one.
rhsaunders is wrong the metals do bond.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass
"Brass is any alloy of copper and the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses, each of which has unique properties."

Yes, it is a compound the two metals do react and form a bond with each other. That is what makes it an ALLOY. Because it is an alloy it is homogeneous, which means it is all the same material it is not a mix of materials (that would make it heterogeneous).

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy
"An alloy is a homogeneous mixture of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties. The resulting metallic substance usually has different properties (sometimes substantially different) from those of its components."

Alloys are two or more metals or additonal items added to metals to make the product stronger. For example brass is much harder than copper and easier to work. Steel is an alloy of iron and 6% carbon. That small bit of carbon is the difference between a bar you can bend with your hands and a thinner, stronger bar.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy
"The physical properties of an alloy, such as density, reactivity and electrical and thermal conductivity may not differ greatly from the alloy's elements, but engineering properties, such as tensile strength, shear strength and Young's modulus, can be substantially different from those of the constituent materials. This is sometimes due to the differing sizes of the atoms in the alloy—larger atoms exert a compressive force on neighboring atoms, and smaller atoms exert a tensile force on their neighbors. This helps the alloy resist deformation, unlike a pure metal where the atoms move more freely."

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogeneous
"Generally, homogeneity means being the same throughout... In physical chemistry, homogeneous describes a single-phase system as opposed to a heterogeneous system."

If you examine brass on a microscopic level you will have particles or atoms of brass not a mix of elements. If it was not a homogeneous material then the melting point of copper would separate the copper out of the brass.

According to About.com: http://chemistry.about.com/od/dictionariesglossaries/g/defalloy.htm?terms=alloy
"Definition: substance made by melting two or more elements together, at least one of them a metal. An alloy crystallizes upon cooling into a solid solution, mixture, or intermetallic compound."

If it wasn't a new compound then it wouldn't crystallize as one metal, it would be like frozen seawater; a mix of salt, water and other impurities; this crystallization is how the elements come together to form one metal.

Answer 6

Previous answers are not correct: brass is a mixture of copper and zinc. There is no chemical bonding involved.

Answer 7

Is Brass An Alloy

Answer 8

I was just talkng to a PhD Chemist friend 5 minutes ago & he says it is a mixture. I had believed that an alloy was a type of compound. But I ll defer to his education & 40+ years working as a Chemist.

Answer 9

it is an alloy of Cu & Zn

Alloys can be termed as mixture of Two or more metals in a definite proportion.

an alloy exhibits totally different physical properties, with that of its components.

Answer 10

compound