You as a human use pure iron. But non-animate objects, yeah mostly alloys
Comment on Aluminum
sparkle@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I can’t think of many things you encounter every day that just use straight iron. Only alloys that use iron
repungnant_canary@lemmy.world 3 months ago
blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 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.
pyre@lemmy.world 3 months ago
sounds like a good argument for iron.
Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Sounds like aluminum is a loaner 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.
labsin@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Pure aluminium is only used when you need to have very little reactivity.
General construction steel have >98% weight iron. Around the same as most aluminium alloys.
sparkle@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Really now? I thought most steel had way more carbon & chromium than that. I guess I underestimate how little is needed to make iron no longer mushy.
general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 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