Aluminium is the most widely used of these metals, its combination of strength and lightness making it of great value in many areas. The metal and its alloys are used in the manufacture of aircraft and motor vehicles, in overhead power cables and electrical wires - it is a good conductor of electricity - and in drinks cans and food packaging, where it is made suitable by its lack of taste and odour. In window and door frames, and as architectural cladding - as used, for example, on buildings at Gatwick airport - it is efficient in keeping in heat.
Others of these metals are used in the electronics industry. Less electrically conductive than the transition metals, but superior in this respect to the non-metals, elements such as gallium, germanium, indium and antimony are valuable as semiconductors.
Lead, tin, antimony and bismuth are used in a variety of alloys. All four are used in solder (as are gallium and indium), where their low melting points - ranging from 231.97 degrees Celsius for tin to 630.76 degrees Celsius for antimony - make them of value. They are also employed in gun metal, type metal, and shotgun pellets.
