What really is the difference between stain-less steel and iron? I only know that iron is an element, and stain-less steel is an alloy...but what else is there?
Steel is an alloy composed of mainly iron and carbon. Pure iron is very rarely used anymore. Depend on the concentration of the carbon, you can get from wrought iron to high grade steel. For stainless steel, Chromium is added to the alloy to prevent rusting. Just go to wiki. you should be able to find a lot more about it
alloy is a mixture of multiple metals or some other elements. like some steel is mixed with carbon and iron so that alloy is more hard than the pure iron. some of them is mixed with aluminium and iron. that's all depends on the requirement.
Iron is an element. Steel is an alloy made of iron. Mild Steel, or Carbon Steel is made from at least 98% iron in a preocess that involves controlled application of heat. Other Steel Alloys contain significant ammounts of other elements. In the case of Stainless steel, these elements are Nickel and Chromium. In plain steel, the carbon content varies from 0.15% to about 1.4%. The higher the carbon content, the harder the steel is. Over 1.4% carbon, the steel becomes so hard that is also becomes brittle. Carbon content is also used to control the hardness of stainles steel. Because Stainless steel is corrosion resistant, it is often used for making food preparation equipment. Aluminum is NOT a common element in steel. Aluminum reacts to silicon content similarly to the way Iron reacts to carbon content. High strength Aluminum alloys often contain Magnesium.
Steel is iron that is treated with very specific amounts of carbon (sometimes other specific elements are added which results in different types of steel alloy) which results in greatly increased utility in all aspects of the metal.
