an ore is a rock that contains enough of a metal compound such as a metal oxide to make it worth extracting the metal from it high grade ores are rocks that contain lots of a metal compound whereas low grade ores contain less of these compounds high grade ores are starting to become scarce particularly for copper so we need to start extracting Copper from low grade ores too we can extract metal compounds from the soil using plants in a process called phyto mining we grow plants on soils that contain metal compounds such as copper oxide and the compounds are taken up by the plant when we burn the plants the ash that's produced contains a lot of metal compounds which we can then extract the metal from another method we can use is biolin which uses bacteria we can grow bacteria on rocks containing metal compounds the bacteria carry out chemical reactions and produce a liquid called leate that contains lots of metal compounds we can collect the leate and extract the metal from it to extract the pure metal such as Copper from the ash or the leate we have a couple of options if the metal is less reactive than carbon like copper is we can do reduction using carbon this is because carbon can displace the metal from its compound if the metal is less reactive than iron we could also displace it using scrap iron or for metals that are more reactive than carbon like aluminium we can use electrolysis instead but we'd rather use the other methods if we can because electrolysis is expensive here are some practice questions for you to try pause the video and give them a go the process used to obtain metal compounds from plants is called phytomining this process works by growing plants on soil that contains metal compounds they take up the metal compounds so when they're burned the ash produced contains the metal compounds when we extract metal compounds using bacteria the proc cess is called bioin to do this we grow bacteria on rocks that contain metal compounds and the bacteria produce a liquid called leachate which contains metal compounds to extract the pure metal from the metal compounds we've obtained we can carry out reduction using carbon but only if the metal is less reactive than carbon otherwise carbon won't be able to displace it we can also use scrap ion to displace the metal from its compound if the metal is less reactive than iron or if the metal is more reactive than carbon we use electrolysis