What is Manganese?

Manganese is a chemical element, and the symbol used for it is Mn. Manganese as a metal looks like iron ; it is cumbersome to fuse into other metals, and hard and brittle. Manganese has an extremely important role as a constituent in many alloys, particularly in stainless steel. Compounds of manganese are have a huge variety of uses and applications in a vast range of industries and techniques, even though manganese is usually found as a free element in nature, or more commonly in combination with iron. Another big application of manganese is its alloying with aluminum, which ultimately becomes very resistant to corrosion. Manganese and its oxides have been used to both remove color and impart color to glass and various other substances. Hence, it has been called as “glassmakers’ soap”. A large number of enzymes have manganese as one of the components, and hence manganese has an important biological role. Furthermore, manganese is essential to photosynthesis, and is used in many plant fertilizers. The human body stores manganese in the liver and kidneys, and contains on an average 10 mg of it. Manganese inhalation over a certain extent can be harmful for the nervous system, and lead to cognitive disorders.