Why is heat needed to bond copper and zinc into brass?what exactly happens?
Heat is needed to bind copper and zinc in to brass, for several reasons the basic of which being that if you just put a strip of copper, and a strip of zinc on top of each other and banged them together with a hammer you would just have 2 separate metals just stuck together. But when you melt them together you get you get an alloy which is not a compound but has combined properties from both Cu and Zn, the reason it works like this is because metal form a structural lattice. (molecules arranged in a repeating pattern to form a specific shape) So instead of just having a lattice of just Cu or Zn you one built of both to get the strengths of both metals (Ex. malleability of copper with the rigidity and corrosive resistance of zinc) or a cement wall reinforced with rebar, the cement wall or the rebar by themselves are not as strong as when they are cast together.
You can not turn copper into brass or Zink they all are different material
