Iron as a Raw Material in Forging and Industry

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Benha University, Faculty of Applied Arts, Industrial Design Department, Benha, Egypt

2 National Research Centre (NRC), Textile Research and Technology Institute (TRTI), Pre-treatment and Finishing of Cellulose based Textiles Department (PFCTD), El-Behouth St. (former El-Tahrir str.), Dokki, P.O. 12622, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Iron is a chemical element; it has the symbol Fe (from Latin ferrum 'iron') and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, just ahead of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust, being mainly deposited by meteorites in its metallic state, with its ores also being found there. The melting and boiling points of iron, along with its enthalpy of atomization, are lower than those of the earlier 3d elements from scandium to chromium, showing the lessened contribution of the 3d electrons to metallic bonding as they are attracted more and more into the inert core by the nucleus; however, they are higher than the values for the previous element manganese because that element has a half-filled 3d sub-shell and consequently its d-electrons are not easily delocalized. This same trend appears for ruthenium but not osmium.

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