What happens when iron corrodes?

Answer 1

The easiest way to answer this is to appeal to logic. Taking iron as an example, it has to be mined, crushed and heated in a blast furnace with enormous energy input. Nature abhors energy and always tries to minimize it. Water will always flow from a high area to a low area to minimize energy. Water will bead up on a surface to minimize energy.

Now consider the piece of iron that has been mined, crushed and roasted. It wants to get back to mother nature - the lowest energy. This is iron oxide or rust.

When a metal corrodes, it is merely going back to the state found in nature - a a low energy state. Thermodynamically, a metal wants to do this. It is energetically favorable. Corrosion can thus be described as the reverse of extractive Metallurgy.

Answer 2

Unfortunately yes. Iron , especially when wet and even more especially when in salt water, oxidises to form rust. This means that all iron and steel products (eg nails, bicycles, cars) and buildings (piers, bridges) are doomed to self destruct over a peiod of time.

Answer 3

Steel corrodes because it is oxidizing. Which in simpler terms simply means that electrons are being removed from the iron atoms in the steel. This is catalyzed by an electric current running through the steel. It is more common in just plain iron because there are no other atoms surrounding the iron atoms to protect them from the electric current.

Answer 4

Because oxygen ions attach to iron atoms to make iron oxide (a.k.a. rust).

Answer 5

All acids contain hydrogen plus ions and these ions react with almost everything because hydrogen only has 1 valence electron to use. The reaction causes iron or any thing else to weaken.

Answer 6

All metals corrode because of formation of oxides on the surface of metals & therefore rusting occurs.

Answer 7

It gets rusty