Iron
hideIron (pronounced /ˈаɪ.ərn/) is a chemical element with the symbol Fe (Latin: ferrum) and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element. Iron and iron alloys (steels) are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use. Fresh iron surfaces are lustrous and silvery-grey in colour, but oxidise in air to form a red or brown coating of ferrous oxide or rust. Pure single crystals of iron are soft (softer than aluminium), and the addition of minute amounts of impurities, such as carbon, significantly strengthens them. Alloying iron with appropriate small amounts (up to a few per cent) of other metals and carbon produces steel, which can be 1,000 times harder than pure iron.
Iron-56 is the heaviest stable isotope produced by the alpha process in stellar nucleosynthesis; heavier elements than iron and nickel require a supernova for their formation. Iron is the most abundant element in the core of red giants, and is the most abundant metal in iron meteorites and in the dense metal cores of planets such as Earth.
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News tagged with iron
Study Yields Surprising New Insight into High-Temp Superconductors
Mar 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, an international group of researchers discovered that the underlying mechanism producing high-temperature superconductivity in a widely studied class of copper-oxygen-based superconductors may be ...
Single-Molecule Magnets Open New Door for Information Technology
Mar 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Recent research by scientists in Italy and France shows that that single molecules have the ability to store information via their magnetic state. Their work is a first step toward a new generation ...
'Single-Crystal' Superconductors are a Big Step for the Field
Aug 28, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In key advances for the field of superconductivity, a research group has created versions of a class of widely studied superconducting compounds that are each one continuous crystal, rather ...
Machine Converts CO2 into Gasoline, Diesel, and Jet Fuel
Nov 23, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have built a machine that uses the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide waste from power plants into transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, ...
Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf ...
Magnetism Turns Drug Release On and Off
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Oct 30, 2009 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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Many medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes and chronic pain, require medications that cannot be taken orally, but must be dosed intermittently, on an as-needed basis, over a long period of time. A few delivery techniques ...
New methods are changing old materials
Oct 28, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A company that makes steel for bearings used in heavy trucks had a big problem. The trucks travel through harsh, perilous environments such as Siberia, and an unexpected bearing failure on ...
Banded rocks reveal early Earth conditions, changes
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 11, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The strikingly banded rocks scattered across the upper Midwest and elsewhere throughout the world are actually ambassadors from the past, offering clues to the environment of the early Earth ...
Graphite mimics iron's magnetism
Oct 04, 2009 |
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Researchers of Eindhoven University of Technology and the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands show for the first time why ordinary graphite is a permanent magnet at room temperature. The results ...
Better control of carbon nanotube 'growth' promising for future electronics
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Oct 01, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use tiny structures called carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional ...
Methane-eating microbes can use iron and manganese oxides to 'breathe'
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 09, 2009 |
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Iron and manganese compounds, in addition to sulfate, may play an important role in converting methane to carbon dioxide and eventually carbonates in the Earth's oceans, according to a team of researchers ...
Implant bacteria, beware: Researchers create nano-sized assassins
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Jun 26, 2009 |
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Staphylococcus epidermidis is quite an opportunist. Commonly found on human skin, the bacteria pose little danger. But S. epidermidis is a leading cause of infections in hospitals. From catheters to prosthetic ...
XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge
May 27, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy.
Ancient ecosystem thrives millions of years below Antarctic glacier
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 16, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal ...
Scorpion venom with nanoparticles slows spread of brain cancer
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Apr 16, 2009 |
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By combining nanoparticles with a scorpion venom compound already being investigated for treating brain cancer, University of Washington researchers found they could cut the spread of cancerous cells by 98 ...
