How can a rock become parts a car?
Every chemical element that occurs naturally on earth can be found in a rock somewhere (there are a few man-made elements, but they don’t count here). Rocks that are rich in certain elements can be mined and the elements separated by various techniques. Sometimes this is fairly easy (and therefore relatively cheap); for example, rocks containing copper minerals can be mined, ground finely, and the copper-bearing minerals can be separated by a process call flotation. These mineral particles can then be smelted (heated until they are molten) and the copper (and a few other elements) are separated as metals. In this process, US mines will typically produce 6-10 pounds of copper for every ton of ore that is processed. Other elements are not so easily separated from their host minerals, and require much more extensive treatment to be recovered, making them more expensive, particularly if their concentrations in the original rock are very low. So, once we mine and separate the stuff we need
