The Metal Basics: Which Metal will rust first?
Positive thinking, a factor that keeps me going... What will happen when the positive 'fire' in me dies off one day and what is left are nothing but black ashes? Being positive, I hope that this day would never come though i know it bound to happen someday... It's just like how various kind of Metal would rust first, under different circumstances - It's only a matter of time.
- Rust - normally used for iron-based metals, the name for the familiar dusty or flaky red-brown iron oxide that slowly builds up on these metals.
On copper, bronze, or silver, we talk about “tarnish” if we are thinking about the degradation of the metal surface, or a "patina" if we are thinking about the pretty and sometimes artistic effects that tarnish can produce on the surface of these metals.
- Steel - large number of different metal alloys, containing mostly iron, a little carbon, and varying amounts of different other metals.
- Tungsten steel - very hard and strong for use in tools; your tools will rust quite badly if you leave them out in the weather for a few days.
- Stainless steel - resist rusting and other sorts of attack by chemicals in a wide range of situations, but it is quite soft.
Different steels are designed and made for different purposes. It is almost impossible to compare the rusting rate of "steel" with anything -- it depends what sort.
- Iron reacts very slowly with ordinary oxygen, but reaction is catalyzed by water, acid or salt.
- Copper hardly reacts with oxygen at all but does react quite slowly with carbon dioxide, water and oxygen to form a green tarnish. It reacts more quickly with salt spray and acid to form a different green tarnish.
- Silver does not tarnish at all in ordinary air but if it is used in the kitchen, it will rapidly forms a black tarnish when traces of gases produced during cooking are found.
- Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin and it reacts very slowly with ordinary oxygen to produce whitish tin oxide tarnish, or more rapidly in the various types of polluted air to form the same products as copper.
Final deal: Always play safe by choosing stainless steel as well as, keep them away from perfume water and oil traces.
Source: John Christie, Faculty, Dept. of Chemistry.
10:01 PM
