This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Copper article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 12 months

This  level-3 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Elements Top‑importance This article is supported by WikiProject Elements, which gives a central approach to the chemical elements and their isotopes on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing this article, or visit the project page for more details.ElementsWikipedia:WikiProject ElementsTemplate:WikiProject Elementschemical elements Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale. Mining High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mining, a collaborative project to organize and improve articles related to mining and mineral industries. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, or visit the project page, where you can see a list of open tasks, join in the discussion, or join the project.MiningWikipedia:WikiProject MiningTemplate:WikiProject MiningMining High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Occupational Safety and Health Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to occupational safety and health on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Occupational Safety and HealthWikipedia:WikiProject Occupational Safety and HealthTemplate:WikiProject Occupational Safety and HealthOccupational Safety and Health Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Materials High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Materials, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Materials on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MaterialsWikipedia:WikiProject MaterialsTemplate:WikiProject MaterialsMaterials High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale. Metalworking Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Metalworking, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Metalworking on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MetalworkingWikipedia:WikiProject MetalworkingTemplate:WikiProject MetalworkingMetalworking Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Rocks and minerals Low‑importance Copper is part of WikiProject Rocks and minerals, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use rocks and minerals resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Rocks and mineralsWikipedia:WikiProject Rocks and mineralsTemplate:WikiProject Rocks and mineralsRocks and minerals Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Arizona Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Arizona, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Arizona on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArizonaWikipedia:WikiProject ArizonaTemplate:WikiProject ArizonaArizona Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

	Copper has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result October 2, 2006 Good article nominee Listed September 23, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted April 14, 2011 Peer review Reviewed May 1, 2011 Good article nominee Listed July 15, 2025 Good article reassessment Kept Current status: Good article

There is a request, submitted by Catfurball (talk), for an audio version of this article to be created. For further information, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. The rationale behind the request is: Important.

Section sizes Section size for Copper (49 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 3,025 3,025 293 293 Etymology 448 448 38 38 Characteristics 381 11,196 19 697 Physical 3,839 3,839 300 300 Chemical 1,855 1,855 127 127 Isotopes 2,335 2,335 101 101 Occurrence 2,786 2,786 150 150 Production 3,569 20,535 213 1,113 Reserves and prices 3,368 3,368 209 209 Copper demand 1,512 1,512 32 32 Extraction 4,190 4,190 181 181 Recycling 4,067 4,067 218 218 Historic recycling in the United States 1,338 1,338 94 94 Environmental impacts 2,491 2,491 166 166 Alloys 4,968 4,968 344 344 Compounds 786 12,862 37 598 Binary compounds 1,410 1,410 87 87 Coordination chemistry 3,826 3,826 230 230 Organocopper chemistry 3,378 3,378 128 128 Copper(III) and copper(IV) 3,462 3,462 116 116 Biological role 48 20,002 0 1,137 Biochemistry 4,534 4,534 255 255 Nutrition 859 11,045 64 661 Absorption and regulation 2,790 2,790 131 131 Dietary recommendations 3,938 3,938 313 313 Deficiency 3,458 3,458 153 153 Toxicity 2,597 2,597 116 116 Bioleaching 636 636 35 35 Human exposure 1,142 1,142 70 70 History 12 26,381 0 1,679 Prehistoric 18 12,842 0 685 Copper Age 9,023 9,023 382 382 Bronze Age 3,801 3,801 303 303 Ancient and post-classical 8,782 8,782 620 620 Modern 4,745 4,745 374 374 Applications 2,431 24,724 131 1,093 Wire and cable 4,094 4,094 214 214 Electronics and related devices 900 900 60 60 Electric motors 2,034 2,034 84 84 Architecture 5,492 5,492 211 211 Antibiofouling 1,351 1,351 91 91 Antimicrobial 5,643 5,643 222 222 Fungicide 421 421 31 31 Folk medicine 2,358 2,358 49 49 See also 372 372 0 0 References 28 28 0 0 Notes 636 636 0 0 Further reading 1,158 1,158 0 0 External links 1,542 1,542 0 0 Total 127,877 127,877 6,992 6,992

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

This page has archives. Sections older than 365 days may be auto-archived by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 2.

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria due to uncited statements in the article, including one tagged as such since 2016. There's also some other tags in the article that should be resolved. Is anyone interested in resolving this concern, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 03:30, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent work has reported a copper(-I) compound and so the infobox should be revised to add this to the list of oxidation states with the following paper cited https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56544-z Jackson, R.A., Evans, N.J., Babula, D.J. et al. Nucleophilicity at copper(-I) in a compound with a Cu–Mg bond. Nat Commun 16, 1101 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56544-z 138.38.24.38 (talk) 16:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, edited the appropriate template accordingly. Choucas Bleu 🐦‍⬛ 22:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! 138.38.24.38 (talk) 14:10, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Netther the "Applications" section, nor any other part, makes any mention of the popularity of copper cookware, and the like... 185.113.96.31 (talk) 13:17, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cookware might not be a major app. All domestic uses account for 12% according to Ullmann's. Cookware has a big section on copper. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:17, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That can be copied in from the cookware article. ← Metallurgist (talk) 17:46, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually its unsourced so thats not ideal ← Metallurgist (talk) 17:47, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I added a sentence with a source.  Done Johnjbarton (talk) 18:04, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted this sentence.

• A factor called "copper usage intensity," is a measure of the quantity of copper necessary to install one megawatt of new power-generating capacity.

I did find a paper that mentioned a related concept but analysis shows it to be unreliable.

• Crowson, P. (2018). Intensity of use reexamined. Mineral Economics, 31(1), 61-70.

Johnjbarton (talk) 02:39, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly the entire section "Renewable energy production" has biased or unrelated sources. Almost the entire section repeats claims about copper unrelated to renewable energy production. The only exception is this sentence which says

• Copper usage averages up to five times more in renewable energy systems than in traditional power generation, such as fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.

sourced to Zolaikha Strong, director of sustainable energy for the Copper Development Association. The "up to 5 times" claim is surely wp:Extraordinary since the basic role of copper of copper is wires and not clearly different in renewable systems. The blog post does not elaborate. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The main sources I find that related copper to renewable energy production concern production of copper not its deployment:

• Moreno-Leiva, S., Haas, J., Junne, T., Valencia, F., Godin, H., Kracht, W., ... & Eltrop, L. (2020). Renewable energy in copper production: A review on systems design and methodological approaches. Journal of Cleaner Production, 246, 118978.
• Harmsen, J. H. M., Roes, A. L., & Patel, M. K. (2013). The impact of copper scarcity on the efficiency of 2050 global renewable energy scenarios. Energy, 50, 62-73.

In my opinion these are not notable for the element copper. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:30, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The large addition that you removed was sort of a lecture and the info was often tangential. So I am glad you removed it. I havent looked at this article lately, but the deleted section did emphasize the importance of Cu in the energy sector, which seems very valid since essentially all electron-conveying technologies rely on it.--Smokefoot (talk) 16:38, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else think there's far too many images in this article (especially when combined with the long infobox)? Was about to take an axe to a few of them, moreso in the production section, but unsure which to keep and how best to reformat Kowal2701 (talk) 17:06, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also I'm not sure it does a great job at summarising the Copper extraction article Kowal2701 (talk) 17:15, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About half the time I find that the problem is the summarized article rather than the summary, so I'd check that possibility. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:39, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I cut some images recently and moved them around. I actually think the infobox is too long but that ship has sailed. One note in case you don't know: the right hand infobox pushes default-positioned images down (and of course the results depend upon the screen size. On mobile the infobox is folded up and in general the images work fine.

I would cut the Copper bullion image. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On mobile it works really well, on computer it looks a bit like pop-up ads because they appear on both sides of the text (MOS:SANDWICH), have different sizes, and are pretty disjointed. For instance, the image of the drainage pushes the next heading down so there’s white space.

For Production I would have gotten rid of the bullion, the disc, the native copper (because it’s a duplicate of the lead image), and moved price and world production up to "Reserves and prices" on the right. And moved melting copper and the mine to "Extraction", also making flash smelting line up w the flow chart. Maybe that’s too drastic and all it needs is removing bullion and making the mine and world production line up w the others above.

For Coordination chemistry idk but I would have ditched the Pourbaix diagram as too technical and moved the blue copper to the right.

Thoughts? Kowal2701 (talk) 20:26, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I applied a couple of things you suggested and I agree with.

I would not get too hung up on the image layout. I do think on-topic images add interest to articles but their layout on desktop sites is not stable. Different engines, different browser window widths, subsequent edits all shift things around. So "line up with" won't generally work out. You can try to alternate left-right. If you put everything on the right the images will be pushed out of sequence with the sections. I think MOS:SANDWICH overstates the case because it uses two very horizontal images, but many images are vertical or square.

The Environmental impacts section has {{clear}} to prevent overlap of the images on the right side; that is what causes the white space. YMMV.

You could put Price of Copper and World Production in a gallery so it sits horizontally.

I agree, the Pourbaix is in Copper compounds so it can go. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:36, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's much better, happy to drop other suggestions Kowal2701 (talk) 21:42, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The bioremediation section was deleted by @Smokefoot in this edit. I did not agree with the edit summary. The content had nothing to do with geologic scale; bioleaching is an industrial process. The source

• Gadd, G. M. (2010). Metals, minerals and microbes: geomicrobiology and bioremediation. Microbiology, 156(3), 609-643.

has over 2400 citations. The source

• Harbhajan Singh (2006). Mycoremediation: Fungal Bioremediation. John Wiley & Sons. p. 509. ISBN 978-0-470-05058-3.

has over 600 citations, again well above any reasonable bar.

However I do agree that the content itself is weak and after further investigation I replace the Bioremediation with Bioleaching based on the first source and added a section on application as a fungicide based on a source discovered from the Singh source.

I think a section on Bioremediation would need to establish the issue with environmental copper first. This source

• De Groot, Rodney C., and Bessie Woodward. "Using copper-tolerant fungi to biodegrade wood treated with copper-based preservatives." International biodeterioration & biodegradation 44.1 (1999): 17-27.

does that but it is also clearly just an early investigation. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:23, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well the main thing is thank you for your diligence and politeness in response to my comments. I will leave that aspect alone. Bioremediation and related topics with respect to heavy metals are irksome to me because I think that they offer false hope to serious problems. But I will desist. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:03, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]