Background

Manganese is gray-white metal with a pinkish tinge, and a very brittle but hard metallic element. Its atomic number 25. In 1774, while heating the mineral pyrolusite (MnO2, manganese dioxide) in a charcoal fire, the Swedish scientist Johann Gahn discovered manganese. The heat and carbon in the charcoal separated oxygen from the pyrolusite, leaving a metallic manganese residue. This chemical reaction is called a reduction reaction.
Manganese is a reactive element that easily combines with ions in water and air. In the Earth, manganese is found in a number of minerals of different chemical and physical properties, but is never found as a free metal in nature. The most important mineral is pyrolusite, because it is the main ore mineral for manganese. When manganese is alloyed with other metals like aluminum, copper and antimony, the end product is magnetic.

Name

The word manganese comes from the Latin word magnes which means magnet.

Sources

Manganese occurs principally as pyrolusite (MnO2), braunite, (Mn2+Mn3+6SiO12), psilomelane (Ba(Mn2+)(Mn4+)8O16(OH)4), and to a lesser extent as rhodochrosite (MnCO3). Land-based resources are large but irregularly distributed. Over 80% of the known world manganese resources are found in South Africa and Ukraine. Other important manganese deposits are in China, Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, Gabon, India, and Mexico.

Uses

Steel becomes harder when it is alloyed with manganese. It has similar applications when alloyed with aluminum and copper. Hardened steel is important in the manufacture of construction materials like I-beams (24% of manganese consumption), machinery (14% of manganese consumption), and transportation (13% of manganese consumption).