Hint: To answer this question first we need to understand what is mineral and ore. Minerals are the inorganic substances that exist naturally in the earth’s crust, they have the definite chemical formula.
Complete Answer:
Most of the minerals are unstable to exist in natural form in the earth’s crust, so they become stable by combining with some other elements, and this combination is known as ores. Ores are the minerals from which metal can be extracted easily.
Let’s have a look at the major differences between the mineral and ore.
| MINERAL | ORE |
| Minerals are the natural inorganic substance that exist in earth’s crust. | Ores are the Minerals from which metal can be extracted economically and conveniently. |
| They have definite crystalline structure | They do not have definite crystalline structure |
| All minerals are not ores. | All ores are not minerals. |
| Example: Clay is the mineral of Aluminium. | Example: Bauxite and Cryolite are the ores of Aluminium. |
| Minerals may or may not contain a good percentage of metals. | Ore always contains a good percentage of metal. |
Note:
Let’s have a look at a few ores of iron. As iron is one of the most important metals which has its use from day to day activities to the big industries. So, some main ores of iron are Hematite \[ - F{e_2}{O_3}\] , Magnetite \[ - F{e_3}{O_4}\] , Limonite \[ - HFe{O_2}\] and Siderite . Out of these four ores the most important and good quality ores are Hematite and Magnetite. These both ores have great use in the steel industry.
