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Why would you reasonably expect cadmium to be a contaminant in zinc but not in silver?

Answer 1

Well, cadmium commonly forms a #Cd^(2+)# ion as does #Zn^(2+)#.

Silver commonly forms the univalent, #Ag^+# ion, so it could not directly replace #Zn^(2+)# in ores. As I recall, and you will have to read up on this, most heavy metal mining firms have silver, lead, zinc operations; these are a very common mixture of ores.

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Answer 2

Ellie Andrews

Since zinc and cadmium are frequently found together in zinc ores, you would reasonably expect cadmium to be a contaminant in zinc but not in silver. Moreover, because zinc and cadmium have similar chemical properties and frequently occur together in nature, contamination during the extraction process is more likely in zinc than in silver. On the other hand, because silver ores typically do not contain cadmium, the likelihood of cadmium contamination in silver is lower.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.