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What types of metal corrode ?  

September 17, 2008

umm, hi

does anyone know what kid of metles corrode ?

marlie j
student - shepp, vic, AUS

Hi, Marlie. If you were to find a nugget of gold, then somehow it didn't corrode in millions of years. But you won't find nuggets of iron or aluminum or copper or zinc because they do. The metals that don't corrode are basically the precious metals, and they are metals you can find in nature. The metals that you need to smelt from ores will return to an ore-like state eventually.

You didn't tell us what grade you are in, so it's hard to know what you will and won't understand. But when metals corrode they release a small amount of heat. The corroded state is a lower energy state. So corroded metal does not return to uncorroded metal spontaneously.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey