Hello,is it possible to divide an alloy in its own elements? I am particularly interested in Stainless Steel, which is made of Nickel, Chrome and Iron. Do you have an idea of where can I find some more information (blogs, reviews, sites or books)?Thanks for your help
All you have to do is heat the alloy. Since an alloy is a physical mixture heating will be able to separate the different elements according to their melting point. All elements have their own unique melting point.
The iron ,nickel and chromium are (mainly) in solid solution with one another -- all the atoms are completely intermixed on the (FCC)crystal lattice . If you heat stainless steel until it melts , you will simply have a liquid solution of all the components --the components do not separate out. The only practical way to separate the metallic elements would be to make use of their differing reactivities -- re their oxides , nitrides , carbides etc -- and then gradually refine their compounds .
Yes it is possible to recover individual elements from an alloy such as stainless steel, but not easy. Look up etching of stainless steel on google. This same etching solution will completely dissolve stainless steel. These solutions are strong acids such as H2SO4 and HNO3 so safety goggles and good ventilation are absolutely required. Once the metal has been dissolved, then you would need to use a qualitative analysis scheme to precipitate out the different metals one at a time as compounds, then do additional reactions to recover the metallic elements.
