• sparkle@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I can’t think of many things you encounter every day that just use straight iron. Only alloys that use iron

    Meanwhile, you’ll use very pure aluminum all the time

      • HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Uh, I hate to break it to you, but literally all the iron in the human body is either part of a protein or bound to other molecules. It’s not an alloy per se, but it isn’t exactly pure iron

    • labsin@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Pure aluminium is only used when you need to have very little reactivity.

      General construction steel has >98% weight iron. Around the same as most aluminium alloys.

      • sparkle@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Really now? I thought most steel had way more carbon & chromium/nickel/manganese than that. I guess I underestimate how little is needed to make iron no longer mushy.

        • general_kitten@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          It is mainly only in stainless steels that have anything other than iron in high concentrations, they might have something like 30% of their weight elements other than iron

    • Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Sounds like aluminum is a loner and iron plays well with others. I’d bet there is still more iron encountered every day than aluminum even if the aluminum is pure and the iron is alloyed.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Perhaps so, but one might argue that human tech relies more on iron than any other metal - because of its magnetic properties. We need iron to generate and manipulate electricity.