![]() If you don’t like the antique look this reaction leaves on your silver, don’t worry-there are ways to remove tarnish to bring the sparkle back to your pieces.īrass, too, can lose its shine to tarnish over time. When you hear the word “tarnish,” the first thing you think of could be silver-heirloom decor, holiday flatware, and jewelry. Metals that lack iron in their makeup also go through an oxidation process and won’t rust red and will tarnish instead-a process that leaves shiny metal darkened, discolored, and dulled. Remember, rust is caused specifically by iron oxidation. ![]() Tarnish is yet another form of corrosion, but it’s not quite the same as rust. You’ve probably seen copper or bronze coated in a green layer-that’s corrosion at work! Other metals, like copper, more readily corrode, and it's highly visible. So, rust is a specific type of corrosion.Īccording to Corrosionpedia, noble metals like gold and platinum have a more stable chemical makeup compared to base metals, and therefore resist chemical changes when exposed to external factors-even heat. Corrosion is the general term for the breakdown of metals through a chemical process, usually instigated by exposure to water, oils, acids, bases, salts, gaseous materials, and other types of chemicals (via Heavy Industries). Most metals corrode, but some are more resistant than others. Although most metals can and do corrode, iron (or metals that contain iron) and steel are the only metals that rust ( Britannica). Thus, a chemical reaction occurs called iron oxidization, resulting in a layer of reddish-brown rust.Īctually, no. The free oxygen fuses with iron in metal to form iron oxide, a corrosive chemical compound (via How Stuff Works). ![]() atoms of water, both begin to break apart into their respective components. Rust forms when certain metals are exposed to moisture-even just the moisture in the air we breathe. This includes quite a bit of chemistry jargon, but we’ll break it all down for you. To understand how and why rust occurs, we need to go back to the basic principles of matter and composition that we learned in elementary school science. ![]()
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