Malleability facts for kids
Malleability is a special quality that some materials have, mostly metals. It means the material can be flattened into thin sheets without breaking. Imagine squishing something or hitting it with a hammer. If it's malleable, it will just change shape, like clay, instead of cracking or falling apart.
Think of it like making gold leaf, which is super thin gold foil used for decoration. Gold is very malleable, so you can hammer it into incredibly thin sheets. Another example is aluminum foil, which you might use in the kitchen.
Malleability is a type of physical property of matter. This means it's a quality you can observe or measure without changing what the material is made of. Many metals, especially those found in groups 1 to 12 on the periodic table of elements, are known for being malleable.
Some metals that are very malleable include gold, silver, copper, iron, aluminum, and lead.
Contents
How Malleability Works
When you push or hit a malleable metal, its tiny particles can slide past each other without breaking their connections. This allows the metal to stretch and flatten.
Malleability vs. Ductility
You might hear about another property called ductility. While malleability means a material can be flattened into sheets, ductility means it can be stretched into a thin wire. Many metals that are very malleable are also very ductile, like gold and silver.
However, some metals are more malleable than ductile, or vice versa. For example, lead is very malleable (you can flatten it easily) but not very ductile (it's hard to pull it into a long wire).
What About Non-Metals?
Most non-metals are not malleable. If you try to hammer a non-metal, like a piece of chalk or a rock, it will usually just break into pieces. This is because their internal structure is different from metals.
Temperature and Malleability
Sometimes, a material's malleability can change with temperature. For instance, Zinc is malleable when it's warm, between 100 and 200 degrees Celsius. But if it's colder or hotter than that range, it becomes brittle and will break instead of bending.
Related pages
Images for kids
-
This picture shows a test of an aluminum alloy. The way it stretches and breaks shows it's a ductile metal.
-
This test of nodular cast iron shows it's not very ductile.
-
Gold is super ductile! It can be pulled into a wire that's only one atom thick, and then stretched even more before it breaks.
See also
In Spanish: Ductilidad para niños
