Iron- about its elemental properties and history of the metal.

Essay by EarthboundJunior High, 8th gradeA+, February 2004

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Iron:

Basic Information: Iron's is a silvery metal and its nuclei are extremely stable. Its symbol on the periodic table is Fe. Its atomic number is 26 and its atomic mass is 55.845. Its melting point is 1535 degrees Celsius and its boiling point is 2750 degrees Celsius. It has 30 neutrons and 26 protons and electrons. It also has a cubic crystal structure. It is classified as a transition metal. It has 4 energy levels with 2 electrons on the first, 8 on the second, 14 on the third, and 2 on the fourth. It has a relatively average number of energy levels. The following is a list of the half-life for different isotopes. As it shows on the list it has extremely stable nuclei.

Isotope Half Life

Fe-52 8.3 hours

Fe-54 Stable

Fe-55 2.7 years

Fe-56 Stable

Fe-57 Stable

Fe-58 Stable

Fe-59 54.5 days

Fe-60 1,500,000 years

Discovery and Origin: Iron's discovery is unknown along with its discoverer.

It was discovered in ancient times. The name origin was from Latin and came from the Latin word ferrum (iron), which is also the reason for the periodic table symbol Fe. Before it was the copper age, but the ancients found out you couldn't just heat it up to melt it and needed to apply a form of coal in order to wield it which started the iron age in 1000 BC. Below are the major breakthroughs in history of iron.

1300-1200 BC: The Hittites were working iron, although they were probably producing the metal before this date.

700 BC: Steel picks from this era have been found in Assyria, it is not known if their manufacture was deliberate or as a result of prolonged smelting of iron in an abundance of charcoal.

1786: Monge, Vandermonde, and Berthollet established...