Nearly three-quarters of all the elements on Earth are metals, and we see them all around us: from paperclips to aircraft. Metals have useful properties, and people have been using them for thousands of years. Read this book to discover the chemical properties of this useful group of chemicals and their many practical applications. This series describes the essentials of chemistry, from the fundamentals of atomic structure, through the periodic table, to descriptions of different types of reactions. The properties of elements are covered, as well as industrial applications for chemical processes.