Metals and Water Essay example -- Iron, steel, Corrosion, Alkalinity

Certain metals could be affected by the pH of water. This, however, could reflect on real life situations that could affect us, the environment, and also our pipe system as well. Some metals such as iron and steel oxidize when they are exposed to humidity and water thus forming corrosion known as ferric oxides (Roy, 2009). Corrosion has destructive potential if left untreated (Stahl, 2005). Knowing what metals are prone to corrosion is an important issue to take notice about because corrosion happens all around us including possessions that belong to us. It is necessary for industrialized cities to estimate the cost of such devastating nature of corrosion (Newman, 1994). Much of money are spend each year to replace equipment that are corroded, in the United States alone, corrosion causes about $276 billion each year. By using specific metals or methods such as alloying, metallic coating or organic coating can prevent or minimizing corrosion (Drigel, 2008). A specific type of corro sion is rust. Rusts are produced when iron converts to Fe 2+ ions and subsequently reacts with hydroxide ions within the water (Roy, 2009 and N/A, 2006). The physical characteristics of rust are coating of powder, scaly reddish-brown and reddish-yellow hydrated ferric oxides (Roy, 2009). The types of corrosion can be used in evaluating the performance of engineered structures (A reservoir to reduce rust, 2006). Metals are easily corroded in the sea because the salt makes the water a better conductor from the electrochemical cells (N/A, 2006). The ever-changing pH of the ocean due to planktic forminiferal abundance and other variables (Saraswat, 2007), and this could affect the rate of corrosion in metals. The pH is a measurement of the acidity or alkal... ...ltimately save many problems and health risks. It is important to note which metals to use to prevent corrosion because some may post health risks such as Chromium. Prolonged contact with Chromium may lead to lung cancer, ulcers, liver necrosis, and allergic dermatitis, so improper metals used in water distribution system could lead to a high extension in terms of risks because it could also affect the ocean and the wild lives (Chandra and Kulshreshtha, 2004). The world is changing and new technologies are emerging. Some of these technologies include micro-sized chips that are able to run a computer, and if corrosion is one of the problems, then it will post many more complications. Humans rely on technologies and equipment that are sometimes created with metals and they sometimes fail simply because they are exposed to salt water or high humidity (N/A, 2006).