Mineral Many sulfide minerals are economically important as metal ores; examples include sphalerite (ZnS), an ore of zinc, galena (PbS), an ore of lead, cinnabar (HgS), an ore of mercury, and molybdenite (MoS, an ore of molybdenum. Pyrite (FeS), is the most commonly occurring sulfide, and can be found in most geological environments. It is not, however, an ore of iron, but can be instead oxidized to produce sulfuric acid. Related to the sulfides are the rare sulfosalts, in which a metallic element is bonded to sulfur and a semimetal such as antimony, arsenic, or bismuth. Like the sulfides, sulfosalts are
Metallic bonding are typically not molecular, Dalton's law of integral proportions is not valid and often a range of stoichiometric ratios can be achieved. It is better to abandon such concepts as 'pure substance' or 'solute' is such cases and speak of phases instead. The study of such phases has traditionally been more the domain of metallurgy than of chemistry, although the two fields overlap considerably. The metallic bonding in complicated compounds does not necessarily involve all constituent elements equally. It is quite possible to have an element or more that do not partake at all. One could picture the conduction electrons