Silver

Silver is a soft, shiny white transition metal valued both for its beauty and its ability to conduct electricity. At room temperature, it conducts electricity better than any other metal, making it useful in electrical contacts and solar cells. Pure silver is easily bent, so jewelry often uses an alloy: silver mixed with copper to make it harder. Its familiar dark tarnish is silver sulfide, formed when sulfur-containing substances react with the surface. Silver occurs naturally as the free metal and in minerals such as acanthite, a silver sulfide. Most commercial silver is recovered as a by-product of mining and refining lead, zinc, copper, or gold ores, rather than from mines devoted mainly to silver.