Zinc Ore Zinc is a blue-gray, metallic element, with the atomic number 30. At room temperature, zinc is brittle, but it becomes malleable at 100 C. Malleable means it can be bent and shaped without breaking. Zinc is a moderately good conductor of electricity. It is relatively resistant to corrosion in air or water, and therefore is used as a protective layer on iron products to protect them from rusting. Zinc is recovered from a number of different zinc minerals. The most significant of these is sphalerite (ZnS, zinc sulfide). Other minerals, such as smithsonite (ZnCO3, zinc carbonate), and zincite (ZnO, zinc oxide) are also zinc ores.