Everyone knows that iron (metal) has magnetic properties. But why doesn‘t Ferric ammonium sulfate?There are many compounds that contain iron that have no magnetic properties. Why? Why are the magnetic properties also chemical properties? If you heat a compound and drive off another element, have you created a potential magnet? What happens if you slowly heat or cool a magnet. Are there potential magnet transition temperatures for an iron based compound? Are some endo and some exothermic reactions capable of creating potential magnetic compounds? Can magnetic fields cause chemical reactions? Are there any biochemical magnets?
It all because of the structure of the iron atom. The way the electrons are grouped together makes one side of the atom have a high positive charge, and the other a high negative one. When this little groups of particles are lined up, usually by an external force (magnets, current, electric fields, etc) all this positive and negative charges create a magnetic field by itself. When you add other elements to iron to create different compounds, the electric charges get more balanced and thus you don't get those groups of positive and negative charge. Thus, you don't get the magnetic properties. Hope this explanation makes sense. By the way, if the magnetic field is strong enough, even those materials considered non-magnetic can be affected. If I remember well, a university in the Netherlands was able to make a frog levitate using a powerful electromagnet of about 16 Teslas in a lab (your standard fridge magnet has only 0.005 Teslas).
