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Pure iron is barely harder and stronger than copper. Impurities are to iron, what paint is to an artist's canvas.
Red Ochre is Iron
The problem with iron at this level of purity is that it is too soft and too ductile for most commercial uses.
This means that the iron products that we know and recognize are relatively and deliberately impure.
Iron also has three allotropes or crystal forms,
delta iron (body centered cubic) gamma (face centered cubic) and alpha,
body centered cubic. I was originally taught* that delta and alpha iron
were the same allotrope, a distinction that now appears to be a
charming sign of old age… and the addition of impurities (alloying
elements) have different solubilities based on these forms.
It is the addition of carbon and other
elemental impurities which alter these allotropic forms that gives
commercial iron and steel products their diverse properties.
When we look on the material certs that accompany
our steel products , the first element that is reported is carbon.
Carbon is ubiquitous, and has the dominant effect on the behavior of
the iron based product to which it is part, even in the presence of
large amounts of alloying elements.
What is implied by the certs is that after adding up all of the elements reported, the balance of the material is "iron."
In 2009 world Iron and steel production was estimated to be 1,219.7 million metric tonnes.
Physics trivia: Iron is the heaviest atom that can be made by
the fusion of stars. Iron is is the 'ash' of stellar nuclear fusion.
Iron is abundant- the fifth most abundant element on earth, and sixth
most abundant in the universe. Our blood is red because of iron, and
since iron is an essential part of our bodies, we can truly claim that
we are "Stardust."
"We are Stardust, We are golden, We are billion year old carbon, and we got to get ourselves, back to the garden."
Iron is essential to almost all living things indeed it is key to
the working of hemoglobin and oxygen transfer in humans, as well as in
enzymes that are involved in the creation of DNA.
Our bodies store surplus iron in the liver, to cover for those days
when we do not get our required 7 to 11 milligrams of daily iron.
When properly contaminated with carbon, manganese, a
sprinkle of sulfur or phosphorous, iron makes some damn fine precision
machined parts too!
Mostly iron, but the cert doesn't say so
*I was originally taught= Alloying Elements in Steel by Edgar C Bain and Harold W Paxton, 2nd edition:
"The metal iron, as shown in figure 1., exists in two isometric
allotropic crystal forms: (1) alpha and delta iron, whose solid
solutions are called ferrite (or delta ferrite) and (2) gamma iron
whose solid solution is is austenite."
Cave painting
Poster
Lyrics by Jodi Mitchell, performed by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Editor's Note: CR4 would like thank Milo for sharing this blog entry, which originally appeared here.
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Re: Iron - The Implied Element
