Zinc · element 30
The sacrificial metal that corrodes so steel does not, and the nutrient behind taste, smell and healing
Key facts
Zinc has a habit of doing its work unseen. It coats steel lampposts, crash barriers and roofing so they do not rust. It sits alongside copper in brass door handles, in the cases of alkaline batteries and in the cores of modern pennies. Inside your body, around three hundred enzymes need zinc to function, including ones involved in growth, immunity, wound healing and the senses of taste and smell.
For a long time it was also a metal Europeans could not make. Zinc boils at a low temperature, so when its ore is smelted in an ordinary furnace the metal escapes as vapour and burns away. India and China solved the problem centuries before Europe did.
Where it is found
Zinc is around the twenty-fourth most abundant element in the crust. Its main ore is sphalerite, zinc sulfide, which is often mixed with lead and silver sulfides, so zinc, lead and silver are frequently mined together. China, Australia, Peru, India and the United States are the leading producers. Other zinc minerals include smithsonite, hemimorphite and the vivid red zincite from Franklin, New Jersey.
Zinc is widely spread through soils and is taken up by plants, and zinc deficiency in crops and in people is a real problem in some regions. Red meat, shellfish, seeds and pulses are rich sources, with oysters the richest common food of all. An adult body contains a few grams, concentrated in muscle and bone, with a notable amount in the prostate gland and the retina.
How it was discovered
Brass, a copper-zinc alloy, was made from around 1000 BC by heating copper with zinc ore, without anyone isolating zinc itself. The first deliberate production of the metal seems to have happened in India. The Zawar mines in Rajasthan used sealed clay retorts to condense the vapour and were operating on an industrial scale by the twelfth century or earlier. China was smelting zinc by the sixteenth century. In Europe, William Champion patented a smelting process in Bristol in 1738, and the German chemist Andreas Marggraf is usually credited with the first clear scientific isolation in 1746. The name may come from the German Zinke, meaning prong or tooth, describing the spiky crystals of the freshly smelted metal.
What we use it for
More than half of all zinc is used for galvanising, coating iron or steel by dipping it in molten zinc or by electroplating. Zinc corrodes in preference to iron, so even if the coating is scratched the exposed steel stays protected. The same principle protects ship hulls and pipelines with blocks of sacrificial zinc bolted on. Brass is the second biggest use, and zinc die-casting alloys form car door handles, zips and toy cars.
Zinc is the negative electrode in alkaline, zinc-carbon and zinc-air batteries. Zinc oxide is the white pigment and ultraviolet blocker in mineral sunscreens, the active ingredient in nappy rash cream and calamine lotion, and an additive that helps rubber tyres cure. Zinc supplements and lozenges are taken for immunity, and zinc is added to fertilisers where soils lack it.
Reading the numbers
Zinc melts at about 420 °C, low for a metal, and boils at about 907 °C, the lowest boiling point of any metal in the first transition row and the reason ancient furnaces lost it as vapour. Its density of 7.14 g/cm³ is slightly less than iron's. The configuration [Ar] 3d10 4s2 gives a full d shell and a full 4s pair. Zinc loses only the two 4s electrons to form Zn2+, and because its d shell never takes part, its compounds are colourless and it is often described as not a true transition metal. Its first ionisation energy of 906 kJ per mole is the highest of any d-block metal in its row, reflecting how tightly those filled shells are held. Zinc closes the first transition series in group 12, above cadmium and mercury, which share its +2 chemistry and low melting points.
Safety and the environment
Zinc is essential and moderately safe, but too much causes nausea and interferes with the absorption of copper. Breathing fresh zinc oxide fumes when welding or cutting galvanised steel causes metal fume fever, a short flu-like illness. Zinc is more harmful to aquatic life than to people, and runoff from galvanised surfaces and worn tyres puts zinc into urban streams. Mining and smelting release zinc together with lead and cadmium, which is the more serious concern. Zinc is highly recyclable, and galvanised steel scrap is a major source of recovered metal.
Did you know?
- Zinc boils at a lower temperature than is needed to smelt its ore, so early European furnaces turned it straight into vapour that burned away in the flue.
- The Zawar mines in Rajasthan were producing zinc metal in sealed retorts centuries before Europe worked out how.
- American pennies minted since 1982 are 97.5 per cent zinc with a thin plating of copper.
- Zinc oxide has been used on skin for thousands of years, and it is the active ingredient in both calamine lotion and mineral sunscreens.
- Oysters contain more zinc per serving than any other common food.
- When a human egg is fertilised it releases billions of zinc ions in a burst that scientists have nicknamed the zinc spark.
More in the transition metals
Column-mates come first, since elements in one column have outer electrons arranged in a similar way and tend to behave alike; the rest are the nearest neighbours in the family.
See all 38 transition metals on one page, or browse all 118 elements.
Compare Zinc with another element
Each comparison has a side-by-side data table and a plain-English summary of the differences.
Frequently asked questions
What is galvanised steel?
Steel that has been coated with a thin layer of zinc, usually by dipping it in molten zinc. The zinc corrodes in preference to the iron beneath, so it protects the steel even where the coating is scratched, which is why lampposts, fences and crash barriers last for decades outdoors.
Is zinc a transition metal?
It sits in the d-block, but its d shell is full in all its compounds, so it never shows the coloured, variable-oxidation-state chemistry of true transition metals. Many chemists and IUPAC therefore do not count zinc, cadmium and mercury as transition metals.
Does zinc help with colds?
Zinc is needed for a healthy immune system, and some studies suggest zinc lozenges taken at the very start of a cold may shorten it slightly. The evidence is mixed, and large doses cause nausea and interfere with copper absorption, so more is not better.
Is zinc magnetic?
No. Zinc is diamagnetic, meaning it is very weakly repelled by a magnet, and it will not stick to one. Galvanised steel is magnetic only because of the steel underneath the zinc coating.
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Written by Anthony. Updated September 2026. Numerical data from Periodic-Table-JSON (CC BY-SA), cross-checked against the Zinc reference article. Spotted an error? Tell us.