Application

Alloying

Adding one element to another to obtain properties neither has alone.

Most metals in service are not elements. Adding a few percent of something else changes strength, hardness, corrosion resistance or working temperature far more than the proportion suggests, because the addition disrupts the movement of dislocations through the crystal lattice rather than simply diluting it.

That leverage is why the useful list of structural metals is short and the useful list of alloys is enormous.

Medium confidence Weak evidence checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

uses

Copper — element · the base metal of both bronze and brass
Carbon — element · the addition that turns iron into steel
Tin — element · the addition that turns copper into bronze
Beryllium — element · copper-beryllium alloys, for non-sparking and spring applications
Calcium — element · as a deoxidiser in steelmaking
Chromium — element
Manganese — element · present in essentially all steel, to remove oxygen and lock up sulfur
Molybdenum — element · raises the temperature at which steel loses strength
Niobium — element · in high-strength low-alloy steels
Neodymium — element · neodymium-iron-boron, the strongest permanent magnets in commercial use
Nickel — element · stabilises the austenitic structure of stainless steel
Antimony — element · hardens lead, and expands on freezing to fill a mould completely
Scandium — element
Vanadium — element · in high-speed and tool steels
Tungsten — element · in tool and high-speed steels
Zinc — element · with copper, to make brass
Cassiterite — mineral · the ore from which tin reaches bronze and solder
Bauxite — rock · the ore that supplies essentially all primary aluminium
Bismuth — element · in low-melting alloys, and as the non-toxic replacement for lead in solders, free-machining brass and fishing weights — an element most people have also swallowed, as the subsalicylate taken for indigestion
Mischmetal — alloy · added to molten steel to scavenge sulfur and oxygen and reshape the inclusions that remain, which improves toughness — an unglamorous use that consumes a great deal of it

Sources

Material World
Our own writing

Questions this page answers

What is used for Alloying?

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Alloying back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

Alloying → uses (the base metal of both bronze and brass) → Copper → is produced by (as blister copper, refined electrolytically afterwards) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
Alloying → uses (the addition that turns copper into bronze) → Tin → is produced by (reduced from cassiterite at relatively low temperature) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
Alloying → uses (the addition that turns iron into steel) → Carbon → is produced by (as synthetic graphite, made by driving the reaction past silicon carbide until the silicon boils away and leaves the carbon behind) → Acheson process → takes as input (sand and coke, heated to 2,500 °C, which is how silicon carbide has been made since 1893) → Sand → is sourced from (the ultimate source of most of it — granite weathers, the feldspar becomes clay and washes out, and the quartz survives as grains) → Granite → is composed of (by volume, alongside feldspar and lesser mica) → Quartz
Alloying → uses (copper-beryllium alloys, for non-sparking and spring applications) → Beryllium → is produced by (magnesium reducing beryllium fluoride, and the reason beryllium is expensive before anyone accounts for how carefully it has to be handled) → Metallothermic reduction → takes as input (the cheapest reducing metal and the commonest, and the aluminium in thermite) → Aluminium → is extracted from (via alumina — bauxite is refined by the Bayer process before smelting) → Bauxite → is sourced from (the residue of prolonged tropical weathering, which strips the silica and alkalis out of an aluminosilicate rock and leaves the aluminium behind — basalt is one common parent among several) → Basalt
Alloying → uses → Chromium → is produced by (as ferrochrome, reduced from chromite and added to steel without ever being separated as the pure metal) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
Alloying → uses (present in essentially all steel, to remove oxygen and lock up sulfur) → Manganese → is produced by (as ferromanganese, by the same route and for the same reason — steel wants the alloy, not the element) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air

These are the most distinct paths back. Alloying can be traced through others besides.