Copper conductor

Copper has been used in electrical wiring since the invention of the electromagnet and the telegraph in the 1820s.^[1]^[2] The invention of the telephone in 1876 created further demand for copper wire as an electrical conductor.^[3]

Copper is the electrical conductor in many categories of electrical wiring.^[3]^[4] Copper wire is used in power generation, power transmission, power distribution, telecommunications, electronics circuitry, and countless types of electrical equipment.^[5] Copper and its alloys are also used to make electrical contacts. Electrical wiring in buildings is the most important market for the copper industry.^[6] Roughly half of all copper mined is used to manufacture electrical wire and cable conductors.^[5]

^ Sturgeon, W., 1825, Improved Electro Magnetic Apparatus, Trans. Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures, & Commerce (London) 43: pp. 37–52, as cited in Miller, T.J.E, 2001, Electronic Control of Switched Reluctance Machines, Newnes, p. 7. ISBN 0-7506-5073-7
^ Windelspecht, Michael, 2003, Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the 19th Century, XXII, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-31969-3
^ ^a ^b Pops, Horace, 2008, Processing of wire from antiquity to the future, Wire Journal International, June, pp 58-66
^ Cite error: The named reference litz-wire1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference JG99 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ "Copper, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes". Chemistryexplained.com. Archived from the original on 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2013-06-01.