Iron is a strong, malleable, and ductile metal that is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. It has a grayish color, is eight times denser than water, and requires high temperatures to melt, boil, and evaporate. Iron is widely used in building machines and infrastructure due to its strength and effectiveness. It also has the unique property of generating a strong magnetic field.
Some of the properties of iron include strong resistance to high temperatures, being a malleable and ductile material, and being an excellent conductor of electricity and heat. When it comes to physical structure, some properties of iron include being a metal and a solid. In terms of its appearance, iron has properties such as a grayish color, sheen or shine, and general hardness. A very unique property of iron is its ability to generate a strong magnetic field around it, which explains why the Earth has a magnetic field, as the planet’s core is very abundant in molten iron.
In its normal phase, iron is classified as a solid and its density is approximately 7.87 g/cm-3, making it eight times denser than water. As a solid metal, iron requires an unusually high temperature to melt, boil and evaporate. In the physical category, the properties of iron include having a melting point of 2800.4°F (about 1538°C) and a boiling point of 5183.6°F (about 2862°C). It also takes a significant amount of energy, 340 kJ/mol -1 to be exact, to transform iron into its gaseous phase and evaporate. These very high temperatures suggest that iron is a strong and effective material for building machines and infrastructure, in fact, the most widespread and commonly used of all metals.
Iron, as a solid element, can have particles that are pressed compactly against each other, but these particles have the ability to slide over and under other particles or to spread out at very high temperatures. Thus, high malleability and ductility are both properties of iron. The high malleability means that the iron can be hammered into flat pieces or bent into different shapes without breaking. High ductility, on the other hand, means that iron can be stretched into fine wires without breaking.
The properties of iron, like most metals, also include a high conductivity of temperature and electricity. This simply means that iron has the ability to transfer heat and electric currents from one object to another. The reason for this is that iron, as mentioned before, contains atoms that are very compact and with very few, but regular, spaces between them. When heat or electricity touches one end of the iron, the atom capturing the energy somehow “vibrates” and passes the energy to the atom next to it until it reaches the object at the other end.
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