Types of Alloy

Iron Alloys

• Nature, rather than humans, created the first iron alloys: steel. The intense heat meteors undergo as they fall through the Earth's atmosphere mixes the meteor's metals as if they were worked in a furnace, which creates alloys of iron. Meteroic iron often contains either nickel or cobalt. Other alloys of iron include stainless steel, an alloy of iron, cadmium and nickel.

Copper Alloys

• The first mass-produced alloy was bronze, which is a copper alloy. Bronze was so important to early cultures that the period it was first used is called the Bronze Age. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Bronze is strong and flexible, making it useful for a variety of tasks. Other copper alloys include brass, which is a mixture of copper and zinc, that is used for musical instruments and hospital fixtures that utilize copper's antiseptic properties.

Aluminum Alloys

• Modern science has the knowledge and resources to create alloys that ancient humans lacked the capabilities to produce. One of the major new types of alloys created in recent times are aluminum alloys, which have only been mass-produced in the past 100 years. Humans use aluminum alloys for a wide range of tasks, such as aluminum-magnesium alloys used for satellites and aluminum-manganese alloys made for soda cans.

Amalgam

• An amalgam is a special alloy that has mercury as a component. Mercury is liquid at room temperature, and so amalgams are often pastes or liquids. Dentists use an amalgam for tooth fillings because the liquid properties allow the metal to mold to the tooth's specific shape. Gold amalgamates with mercury easily, and so mercury is often used for gold mining in order to collect fine pieces of gold.