PURE IRON
With below 0.008% of carbon content, pure iron is an extremely soft metal. It is also very lustrous and has a great silvery color.
However, it can’t withstand high temperatures or moist air. It has the tendency to rust in such conditions.
It can be found in abundance in the Earth crust. Its content is only second to Alunimum.
Despite being soft, pure iron can’t be obtained through the process of smelting. This is because on smelting, impurities such as carbon are added and the metal becomes stronger and harder. Steel is about 1000 times harder and when the carbon content lies between 0.2 to 2.1%, it becomes steel.
Ferrite is the scientific name of pure iron and it can essentially be found in 3 forms – alpha, beta and gamma. High temperatures can change a few characteristics of pure iron. While its melting point is 1530 degrees, a temperature of 768 degrees will render the loss of its magnetism while a temperature of 909 degrees will result in the loss of its crystalline nature.
Wrought iron is often mistaken as pure iron. This is mainly because it is commercially sold as pure iron. However, they are two different metals just as steel is a different metal from pure iron. They have different properties and should not be mistaken as each other.
99.5% or above pure iron content makes the metal electrical pure iron and because of this property along with the fact that the content of sulfur, phosphorous and carbon is very low, it has certain properties such as high saturation magnetic induction (Bs), high magnetic stability properties, high permeability (μ), and low coercivity (Hc).
Since it is soft and magnetic, electrical pure iron has applications in electronic tubes, aviation instrumentation, electromagnetic valve, electromagnetic shielding and magnetic separator.
Pure iron is also rightly called soft iron and it is used in a number of materials like a few electric motors, magnetic assemblies and electromagnets. The concentrated field is creates can be stronger than the air core 5,000 times.
The fact that it doesn’t saturate easily makes it very useful in the preparation of magnetic cores.
There is also hard iron but soft iron scores over it. This is because hard iron can’t remain magnetized after the magnetic field is removed. Soft iron has this property and is thus very useful.
However, because of pure iron’s electric conductivity, it often traps electricity in the bulk and heats up. Plus, a lot of energy is also wasted.
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