20 Examples of Natural and Artificial Substances

According to its origin, it is possible to classify the entire matter known in natural substances and artificial substances. The term "substance" means that they are substances with a fixed and defined chemical composition. Substances are made up of atoms or molecules, and cannot be separated using physical separation methods (they are not mixtures).

Other ways to classify substances

Substances can also be classified into:

Examples of natural substances

1. Water. It is the most abundant inorganic substance on the planet, essential for the emergence and maintenance of life. Its simple molecule, of two atoms hydrogen and oxygen, it is the product and by-product of numerous chemical reactions and it is abundant in gaseous form in our atmosphere. It is estimated that 70% of the planet's surface is water between solid and liquid.
2. Wool. It is a natural fiber secreted by the animals of the goat family and some camelids, which it serves as shelter and defense against the cold. This fiber is usable for fabrics, so it is sheared and processed.
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3. Rubber. It's a polymer elastic, waterproof and resistant properties, segregated by the name tree namesake and of other tropical trees, from whose trunks it is extracted in the form of a milky liquid. It has been used since ancient times to make pots and other containers and in modern times for thousands of industrial applications, such as automobile tires. Today, however, it is produced synthetically.
4. Wood. Composed of cellulose and lignin, wood is found in the trunk of trees, and grows year after year through a system of concentric rings. This substance is very usable by man given its characteristics of hardness, elasticity and combustibility, both for the carving of tools and utensils, the construction of buildings and even as biomass for burning in ovens and chimneys.
5. Iron. It's a metallic element, resistant, ductile and magnetic, very prone to oxidation, which usually occurs in nature in the form of oxides and mineral compounds. Iron in its pure state is rare, but it can be obtained from its natural sources and used in metallurgy to achieve alloys.
6. Coal. One of the forms of carbon in nature, along with graphite and diamonds, is carbon. In all three cases they are agglomerations of atoms of this element, but arranged in a very different way, so some are more resistant than others and have physical properties different.
7. Sea salt. Also called sodium chloride (NaCl), common salt is an inorganic substance that is produced by the union of a sodium atom and another of chlorine, in a solid form of whitish crystals. It can be easily obtained evaporating water from sea, since the liquid disappears and the saline crystals remain.
8. Helium. Like many of the Noble gases (inert), this monatomic gas has a very low reactivity despite being very frequent in nature, either as part of our atmosphere (from where it can be extracted) or as a by-product of hydrogen fusion within the stars.
9. Nacre. It is a hard, iridescent and white substance, which is composed of crystallized calcium carbonate, organic material and water, in a unique combination that many mollusks Marine can produce inside their shells, to repair possible damage and to preserve their shelter.
10. Glucose. The sugar present in fruits, honey and in the blood of animals (including man) is a monosaccharide of molecular formula C, whose importance in animal metabolism is capital, since it constitutes its main form of energy reserve as well as an important piece in the construction of compounds more complex.

Examples of artificial substances

1. Aspirin. Acetylsalicylic acid, commonly known as aspirin, is a compound derived from the bark of the white willow, which today is fully synthesized in high purity ranges in the laboratories. It is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and analgesic that is considered the most widely used medicine in the world.
2. Artificial glass. It is a translucent, hard and brittle substance that is obtained through the casting of a mix of silica and some carbonates, and is used to make containers, window coverings or automotive glass. It is one of the most manufactured compounds in the world, since its domestic consumption is very high.
3. Uranium-233. It is one of the least stable isotopes of uranium, an element of our planet that can be used in nuclear-type reactions to obtain energy. In fact, the atomic bomb dropped on Japan contained variants of this metal. However, the variant ²³³U does not exist in nature but is produced from natural thorium.
4. Cement. It is the product of a mixture of calcined and ground clay and limestone, to which gypsum and later gravel and sand are added. This powder is widely used in construction and civil engineering, because when adding water it forms a uniform paste, malleable and plastic that hardens to form concrete or cement, of stony hardness.
5. Plastic. It is a synthetic material obtained by polymerization processes of carbon chains from the organic compounds Petroleum derivatives (hydrocarbons). It is perhaps the most produced synthetic material in the world, with innumerable applications in the areas of engineering, commerce and even medicine.
6. Ferrofluid. These substances were synthesized in the second half of the 20th century and are fluids that, in the presence of a magnetic field, proceed to polarize. They have an extreme susceptibility to magnetism ("superparamagnetic"), since they are made of magnetic nanoparticles contained in a liquid that does not allow them to crowd. They are the closest approximation that exists to a magnetic liquid as such.
7. Airgel. Also called "frozen smoke", it is a colloidal material similar to gel, in which the liquid is exchanged for a gas, thus obtaining a very light solid with low density, porous, endowed with an enormous capacity of thermal isolation. It was created in 1931 and since then it has been produced from numerous substances, such as silica, zirconium or alumina.
8. Carbon nanotubes. It is a state-of-the-art nanomaterial, highly hydrophobic, obtained by artificially modifying the proportions of the carbon to achieve allotropic forms (such as diamond or fullerene), this time as a sheet of graphene rolled up on itself herself. They are tiny and possess surprising characteristics: they are electricity superconductors and they can withstand 100 times more stress than steel.
9. Perfluorocarbons. If the hydrogen atoms of a hydrocarbon are replaced by fluorine atoms, a perfluorocarbon is obtained, a substance whose properties are controllable from the length of the carbon chains that compose it, and can be gaseous or liquid. This makes it extremely useful for medicine (as a filler in eye operations) or powerful refrigerant.
10. Fats trans. Although they can be found in small amounts in the milk or body fat of children, animals, most of the trans fats that we consume in many food Industrially processed is the result of the hydrogenation of fats, as in fast food and processed or synthetic dairy foods such as margarine. These fats They are particularly harmful to the body as they reduce good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol.

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