Manganese

Manganese (Mn) is a hard, brittle, silvery-gray transition metal that slowly tarnishes in air. Its biggest industrial role is in steelmaking, where it helps control impurities and can improve strength and resistance to wear. The compound manganese dioxide, rather than the pure metal, is an important ingredient in ordinary alkaline batteries. In nature, manganese occurs in minerals such as pyrolusite, a form of manganese dioxide, with major deposits in South Africa and other countries. For steelmaking, manganese ore is heated with iron ore and carbon in furnaces to produce an iron–manganese alloy. Pure manganese can be obtained by dissolving manganese from ore and using an electric current to recover the metal from solution.