Besides smart investments and strategic partnerships, AFA Trading company focuses on the following businesses:
- Zinc (ore/concentrate)
- Iron
- Steel
- Chrome
- Copper
AFA Trading is an expert in the mining industry and on the transportation sector. Our business includes the cooperation on many fields, such as open pit and underground mines. We also use our good contacts in infrastructure which are essential to cope with transportation issues, including railways, ports and ships.
General information about several products
Zinc is the 24th most abundant element in Earth’s crust and has five stable isotopes. It makes Zinc makes up about 75 ppm (0.0075%) of Earth’s crust.
Generally, the zinc element not found purely, it is found in association with other base metals such as copper and lead in ores.
The ore is formated during the ore genesis(formation process) formed by geological processes. Ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals.
All those elements can be extracted from the rock. They can be refined (smelting, flotation, etc.) after being extracted through mining. Metal ores are generally oxides, sulfides, silicates, or „native“ metals.
Iron makes up 5 percent of Earth’s crust and is second in abundance to aluminium among the metals and fourth in abundance behind oxygen, silicon and aluminum among the elements.
Iron, which is the chief constituent of Earth’s core, is the most abundant element in Earth as a whole (about 35 percent) and is relatively plentiful in the Sun and other starts. In the crust the free metal is rare
Iron is also found combined with other elements in hundreds of minerals; of greatest importance as iron ore are hematite (ferric oxide, Fe2O3), magnetite (triiron tetroxide, Fe3O4), limonite (hydrated ferric oxide hydroxide, FeO(OH)∙nH2O), and siderite (ferrous carbonate, FeCO3).
The metal is extracted by smelting with carbon (coke) and limestone (iron processing).
Steel, alloy of iron and carbon in which the carbon content ranges up to 2 percent (with a higher carbon content, the material is defined as cast iron). By far the most widely used material for building the world’s infrastructure and industries, it is used to fabricate everything from sewing needles to oil tankers.
As an indication of the relative importance of this material, in 2013 the world’s raw steel production was about 1.6 billion tons, while production of the next most important engineering metal, aluminium, was about 47 million tons. The main reasons for the popularity of steel are the relatively low cost of making, forming, and processing it, the abundance of its two raw materials (iron ore and scrap), and its unparalleled range of mechanical properties.
The major component of steel is iron, a metal that in its pure state is not much harder than copper.
On the basis of chemical composition, steels can be grouped into three major classes: carbon steels, low-alloy steels, and high-alloy steels. Most often, steel consumers’ needs are met by carbon steels (i.e. automotive, construction industries).
Chrome is a hard, steel-gray metal that takes a high polish and is used in alloys to increase strength and corrosion resistance.
It was named for its multicoloured compounds. The green colour of emerald, serpentine, and chrome mica and the red colour of ruby are due to small amounts of chromium.
Chromium is a relatively abundant element in Earth’s crust; the free metal is never found in nature. Most ores consist of the mineral chromite, the ideal formula of which is FeCr2O4. It is widely dispersed in natural deposits, which are usually contaminated with oxygen, magnesium, aluminium, and silica; their chromium content varies from 42 to 56 percent. One of the chief uses of chromium is in ferrous alloys, for which the pure metal is not required. Accordingly, chromite is often reduced with carbon in a furnace, producing the alloy ferrochromium, which contains iron and chromium in an atom ratio of approximately 1 to 2.
Chromium is added to iron and nickel in the form of ferrochromium to produce alloys specially characterized by their high resistance to corrosion and oxidation. Used in small amounts, chromium hardens steel.