4 ms·
> and gotten an oxide layer Aluminium has an oxide layer the second it comes into contact with air.
by orlp 5y ago
> and gotten an oxide layer
Aluminium has an oxide layer the second it comes into contact with air.
- londons_explore 5y agoAcids can make that much thicker. Acids that exist in the environment in small amounts...
- labawi 5y agoLike sulfur / sulfuric acid from all the coal we're burning.
- marcosdumay 5y agoIt keeps increasing (exponentially slower, thus with a finite total depth) even without any other chemical. Anyway, out on the world there are many chemicals that can make it deeper, can peel it from the metal so another layer forms, or can mix with it and make it less insulating. I would be surprised if loses are as low as 1% as people point on this thread, but shouldn't be very large either.
- downrightmike 5y agoOxidation is technically a fire, albeit very slow
- jjtheblunt 5y agoreally? citation?
- haneefmubarak 5y agoFire is a phenomena whereby a fuel is combined with an oxidizer to make a new product in a manner that releases heat (ie: an exothermic redox reaction). Rusting of metals fits that bill since heat is in fact released (just a super tiny amount and rather slowly), so it's _technically fire_ - although fire more commonly implies the rapid release of copious amounts of energy as part of the process.
- jjtheblunt 5y agothanks
- jaywalk 5y ago"Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire
- jjtheblunt 5y agothank you
- pdabbadabba 5y agoYou might want to include the end of that sentence: "...in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products." This confirms the, imo, common-sense position that no, oxidation is not just a slow fire. A fire is a specific type of oxidation process that involves the production of significant light and heat. In other words, it is only true that oxidation is a slow fire if one adopts a definition of fire that is significantly different from its ordinary usage.
- jaywalk 5y agoA fire releases the "heat, light and various reaction products" that it does because of the speed of oxidation. It's obvious even from the snippet I posted that slow oxidation is not actually a fire.
- pdabbadabba 5y agoYes, but aluminum oxidizes rapidly yet this oxidation process does not produce significant heat and light. So in this context, the independent heat/light requirement makes a difference!
- ivalm 5y agoOxidation of aluminum does produce heat and light (the reaction is exothermic). It’s just a very small and fast fire.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
- beervirus 5y agoFire is a type (fast) of oxidation. That doesn’t mean that oxidation is a type of fire.