ZINC

(Zn), chemical element, low-melting metal of Group IIb (zinc group) of the periodic table, essential to life, and one of the most widely used metals. Zinc was known in Roman times only in combination with copper as the alloy brass. The metallurgists of India seem to have isolated the individual metal as early as the 13th century, and those of China had achieved large-scale production of zinc by the 16th century. In the West, commercial zinc production got under way by the middle of the 18th century in England under the leadership of William Champion.