Similarly, you may ask, why is copper so expensive?
It also has a high demand making its price even higher. Also, when melted it will oxidize with air and thus has to be done in an enviroment without oxygen. to give you an example, copper is so expensive that companies are taking the wiring from old buildings and houses and melting it to get copper cheaper.
Furthermore, what is the process of extracting copper? Copper can be extracted from its ore by: Underground: sinking a vertical shaft into the Earth to an appropriate depth and driving horizontal tunnels into the ore. The ore is treated with dilute sulfuric acid. This trickles slowly through the ore dissolving copper to form copper sulfate.
Considering this, is copper cheaper or expensive?
Copper is a cheap, plentiful metal with lots of useful properties: It resists corrosion and is an excellent conductor of heat. As a result, it can be found in the intestines of a good chunk of the world's industrial economy. Plumbing, radiators, electrical wiring, and air conditioners all require copper.
Why must the impurities of copper be removed?
Impurities have to be removed. In this process copper is transferred from an impure anode to the cathode of an electrolytic cell. The insoluble impurities fall to the bottom. The copper produced by this process is 99.99% pure copper.
