Over time, spoons became stainless steel by default only people above a certain age will remember the metallic tang of the mixed-metal spoons that came before. In the kitchen, stainless steel knives meant one no longer needed a tetanus shot after an accidental cut. Soon Brearley’s invention was in everything. Brearley showed him the rustless steel, and it was Stuart that suggested the better-sounding name “stainless steel”. A former schoolmate named Ernest Stuart was among the local cutlery makers. As it happened, his hometown of Sheffield was a hub of cutlery-making at the time. If the surface was scratched, the chromium just re-formed the barrier, preventing rust in perpetuity.īrearley called his new alloy “rustless steel”. The chromium oxide created a hard, transparent coating on the metal, a barrier against future oxidisation. Why would this piece alone not rust? It turned out that this was because the chromium acted like a force field, reacting with oxygen to form chromium oxide. For the bit in question, he’d taken the two elements that make up steel (iron and carbon) and added chromium.īrearley was intrigued. He referred to his notes and realised that it was likely a new form of steel. About a month later, while walking through his lab, he noticed a gleaming bit of metal in the pile of rusted bits.
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