The Story of Iron

Iron is the most widely used material in today s human civilization. We obtain it from the Earth. Let us explore how we get it. 

The core of the Earth is almost pure iron as mentioned earlier, but this is not available for human consumption. Iron, however, is also widely dispersed among the rocks constituting the Earth s crust. Originally, it existed as a part of silicate minerals such as pyroxene ((Mg,Ee)Si03) and olivine ((Mg,Fe)2SiO ). The iron in these rocks exists mostly in the form of iron(II) (Fe(II)), so that it substitutes partially Mg(II) of the magnesium silicates. Fe(II) ion is fairly soluble in water unlike Fe(III) ion. Hence, Fe(II) would dissolve in seawater or hot hydrothermal water. 

the concentration of iron in seawater is supposed to be quite high. In fact, it is very low in the today s seawater. It is estimated to be about 10 mol/L on average. The problem is that the atmospheric composition on the today s Earth is quite different from that on the ancient Earth. Let us see why it is so. Iron, in the form of Ee(II), is soluble in neutral water, but Fe(III) is quite insoluble in water as it precipitates as the hydroxide Ee(OH)3 or EeO(OH). 

Today s atmosphere contains about 21% of oxygen (O ). Oxygen in the atmosphere is believed to have been produced mostly by photosynthetic bacteria at first and then algae and all plants (see Chap. 2). The first photosynthetic 

BIF ceased to form after about 1.8 billion years ago, though other types of iron oxide ores such as limonite and goethite (FeO(OH)) formed. Fe(III), when brought to a reducing environment where sulfate is reduced by sulfate-reducing bacteria to hydrogen sulfide (H S), reacts with H S, and forms pyrite FeS. Pyrite is often found in coal. 

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The story of iron takes us back to the period of the Hittite Empire around 1300 BC, when iron started to replace bronze as the chief metal used for weapons and tools. Until today the stoiy remains uncompleted and the social and economic impact of the iron and steel industry is now beyond imagination. In the year 2005 1.13 billion tons of crude steel were produced. Compared to 2004 this is an increase of 6.8%. That same year the steel production in China increased from 280.5 to almost 350 milhon tons. Concerning stainless steel according to the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF), the global production forecast for 2006 now stands at 27.8 million metric tons of stainless erode steel, up 14.3% compared to 2005. 

The sandwiched complexes discussed here show that by thermodynamically and kinetically stabilizing intermediate iron oxidation states such as Fe(II), low-oxidation states such as Fe(I) and even Fe(0) become accessible and find useful applications. Conversely, Fe(III) and even Fe(IV) state may also be accessible. The story of iron sandwiched complexes continues with a discussion of the classical ferrocene and congeners in Sect. 17.3.1. 

A fascinating guide into the history and modern uses of the inert gases, including their new, little-known ability to combine.) bottley, e. p., Rocks and Minerals, G. P. Putnams Sons, New York, 1969 (An advanced book, with beautifully colored pictures of elements and compounds as they are found in nature.) fisher, douglas a., Steel from the Iron Age to the Space Age, Harper and Row, New York, Evanston, and London, 1967 (The story of steel, and the men who made it.) newcomb, ellsworth and kenny, hugh, Miracle Metals, G. P. Putnam s Sons, New York, 1962... 

Hermann Kopp stated in his Geschichte der Chemie that at the beginning of the seventeenth century Turquet de Mayeme (1573-1655) noticed the flammability of the gas evolved from a mixture of iron and sulfuric acid and was the first to make this observation (2). Brief accounts of the life and work of Turquet de Mayerne may be found also in Dr. Charles H. LaWall s The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines (64) and Dr. Victor Robinson s The Story of Medicine (65). 

Experimentally, although grains have been imaged in polished but not etched specimens of both aluminium (Weaver 1986 Fossheim et al. 1988) and copper (Bray 1981), in both cases the contrast was rather poor. But in nickel and iron and related alloys such as stainless steel, grain contrast can be superb (as it is indeed in many ceramics). It seems that, as in the Story of the... 

The story of steel begins when iron ore is fed into a blast furnace (Fig. 16.45). The furnace, which is approximately 40 m in height, is continuously filled at the top with a mixture of ore, coke (impure carbon obtained by heating coal in the absence of air), and limestone. Each kilogram of iron produced requires about 1.75 kg of ore, 0.75 kg of coke, and 0.25 kg of limestone. The limestone, which is primarily calcium carbonate, undergoes thermal decomposition to calcium oxide (lime) and carbon dioxide. The calcium oxide, which contains the Lewis base 02, helps to remove the acidic (nonmetal oxide) and amphoteric impurities from the ore ... 

The Story of hydrogen begins before there was anyone to notice. Long before the Earth and its planetary siblings existed, before the Sun and the Milky Way existed, and even before chemical elements like oxygen, sodium, iron, and gold existed, the hydrogen atom was old, old news. 

A 40-story high modem business building is supported by 0.9 m thick pillars of reinforced concrete. The insurance company must check that the number of iron bars are as many as required, and therefore they want to investigate the pillars by y-radiography. What exposure times are required for (a) a small 200 GBq Co source,... 

Up to World War 1 most industrial countries experienced a rapid increase in the production of sulphuric acid. This was a basic input product for the manufacture of traditional industries (such as textiles, iron and steel), as well as the newer heavy chemicals (oil refining, artificial fertilisers, and explosives) and the emerging fine chemicals (such as synthetic dyes). The strongest reasons for the early rise of this industry in Spain are the abundance of raw materials (sea salt and pyrites) and the existence of a consumer industry (textiles). The development of the acid industry was, however, difficult and slow in the previous century. The story of the pioneer enterprise, Cros, founded by a native of southern France in the surroundings of Barcelona in the... 

The story of mankind is intimately hnked to the discovery and successful use of metals and their alloys. Amongst them iron and steel - we could define steel as a generally hard, strong, durable, malleable alloy of iron and carbon, usually containing between 0.2 and 1.5 percent carbon, often with other constituents such as manganese. Chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper, tungsten. Cobalt, or silicon, depending on the desired alloy properties, and widely used as a stractural material , have shaped our material world. 

Finally, at that time, Sutton found no evidence that this Popeye-iron-spinach story had ever been written down before 1981, when an editorial by Terry J. Hamblin told the cautionary tale in the British Medical Journal. The article contairrs literature references, but it gives no clue as to the origin of the story. Sutton even contacted Hamblin personally, who said that he could not give the somce of the story because of an editorial decision and later forgot what it was. Sutton concluded that Hamblin must have made up the story of thin air. 

Lakatos emphasis on corroboration can be viewed as turning Popper s asymmetry into a dichotomy, indeed symmetry, of falsification and corroboration. This follows from what Popper (1974 1005ff) identified as Lakatos central thesis, which is that exactly the most admired scientific theories simply fail to forbid any observable state of affairs (Lakatos 1974 100). Lakatos proceeds to recount the story of an imaginary account of planetary misbehavior in support of his thesis (the story is a variation of the discovery of Neptune). Ironically, this story is built on the class of forbidden statements derived from Newtonian mechanics (why else would this be a case of planetary misbehavior ), and merely portrays a researcher who is unwilling to concede, or accept, the occurrence of a forbidden instance. Popper (1974 1005ff) took very serious issue with, and refuted, Lakatos central thesis. 

The style of the extract, no less than that of the clearly deHberated act, will not seem out of place in a collection of essays on European modernism. Decadentisme may have begun and been christened in France, but, as this book shows, in the early years of the last century it had a wide reach. The story of Yannopoulos s end is as ironic as it is tragic. The self-appointed 234... 

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