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.
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
labsin@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
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
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.
HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Pure virgin aluminium vs chad alloyed iron
sparkle@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I was super confused when I read “loaner”, I thought you meant loaning as in like borrowing. But then I realized you meant “loner”. Lol
Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Oops, my bad lol
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.
repungnant_canary@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You as a human use pure iron. But non-animate objects, yeah mostly alloys
HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world 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