Metals which corrode easily

Your control group will be 10 pieces of wire-two each of the metals listed above. The variables are the distilled water and the salt water in which the metal wires will be immersed. Using the scientific method, you'll learn which metal begins to corrode first, and which holds up the best. Think about what you may already know about different kinds of metals and how they react when exposed to rain, or air or water that contains a lot of salt.

This will help you to formulate a hypothesis based within the context of knowledge you already possess. Go back to the bicycle mentioned in the first sentence of this section. Under what type of circumstances did your bike rust? When it was stored in the dry garage? Or when you left it lying out in the yard for three days during a steady rain? Why do you suppose that cold-weather drivers are advised to rinse off their cars every now and then during the winter season when road salts are being used?

Have you ever noticed or heard people talk about problems with corrosion near the beach, where salt water is prevalent? Do you already know, perhaps, which metals are most resistant to corrosion? If so, the experiment you'll do will support and affirm your knowledge.

If you don't, try to use common sense and any information you may have about this topic to come up with your best guess-or hypothesis. The experiment you'll be doing will require only a short amount of time to set up, but you'll need to make observations over a day period.

It's going to be important to write down exactly what you see happening to each metal each day. Remember that your measurements will be qualitative, not quantitative. For that reason, the more data you present concerning your experiment, the more reliable your results will be. You'll need some materials for this experiment that probably aren't lying around your house. You should be able to find everything you need, however, at your local hardware or home supply store.

You will need:. If you can get test tubes and a rack, you'll probably find them easier to use than glasses. If you have to use glasses, however, that's fine. You can use plastic or glass cups; just make sure that they're clear so you're able to easily observe what's happening to the wires in them. Make sure that you have all your materials ready before you begin the experiment. Be sure to find an area large enough to accommodate the glasses or test tubes, where they will be undisturbed for the duration of your experiment.

Remember that the more clear and accurate your observations are, the better you'll be able to draw conclusions from your experiment. Use the charts on the following section, or make your own, similar charts to keep track of what you observe during the course of your experiment. Be sure to not mix up the glasses. They'll all look very similar, so be sure that the labels remain intact and you can see them clearly. Some observations you'll want to consider are how the changes to the metal wires immersed in the distilled water compared to the wires in the salt water.

Which metals had the most rust? Was the formation of the rust on any of the wires concentrated on one particular area on the wire?

Or was the corrosion distributed evenly along the immersed wire? Based on your data, which metal would you recommend for the manufacture of bikes, beach chairs, and swing sets-not to mention aircraft and medical equipment? Once you've recorded your results, you can draw a conclusion and identify the answer to the problem you stated at the beginning of your project. If you enjoyed this project and would like to take it a step or two further, you could try one of the following ideas:.

Use your imagination to come up with other ways to vary the project and delve a bit further into this issue. Applying grease Applying paint Applying a coating of zinc All of the above. All of the above. Give an example of a metal which i is a liquid at room temperature. Food cans are coated with tin and not with zinc because: zinc is costlier than tin. An element reacts with oxygen to give a compound with a high melting point. This compound is also soluble in water.

The element is likely to be: calcium carbon silicon iron. Explain the meaning of malleable and ductile. It is relatively high for metals such as magnesium, aluminum, and iron, and relatively low for metals such as copper, silver, and gold. Table 1 lists a few metals in order of diminishing amounts of energy required to convert them from their oxides to metal. A typical cycle is illustrated by iron. The most common iron ore, hematite, is an oxide of iron Fe 2 O 3. The most common product of the corrosion of iron— rust—has a similar chemical composition.

The energy required to convert iron ore to metallic iron is returned when the iron corrodes to form the original compound. Only the rate of energy change may be different.

The energy difference between metals and their ores can be expressed in electrical terms that are related to formation heats of the compounds. The difficulty of extracting metals from their ores in terms of the energy required, and the consequent tendency to release this energy by corrosion, is reflected by the relative positions of pure metals in a list. Destruction by corrosion takes many forms and depends on the complex interaction of a multitude of factors, such as:.

Some environments are more corrosive than others.