this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago (7 children)

These are the required elements for making steel:

  • Iron
  • Carbon
  • Manganese
  • Chromium
  • Phosphorus
  • Sulphur
  • Nickel
  • Molybdenum
  • Titanium
  • Copper
  • Boron

Source: https://www.cliftonsteel.com/education/11elementsfoundinsteel

So, iron is only step 1. Humans are carbon based lifeforms, so I'm guessing that carbon is also sorted, that's step 2.

There's plenty of other elements in the human body, like phosphorus and sulphur, but I'm guessing that it's going to take more than 300 adults.

Source: https://sciencenotes.org/elements-in-the-human-body-and-what-they-do/

Source: https://sciencenotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/PeriodicTableHumanBody.png

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

This is extremely helpful, and fits perfectly into my secret plan

Secret planI will use this info as background for a BBEG in my TTRPG game

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

This is the MVP-comment! Thank you for that source!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Fucking awesome, exactly the comment I was looking for in this thread

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

Steel requires only iron and up to about 2% carbon

Rest are minor alloying elements used mainly in modern steel alloys to improve the steel beyond what just carbon steel could do like for example stainless steels

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)
  1. Your link says these are elements commonly found in steel, not that they are all required. In fact it says of phosphorus and sulphur that they are generally undesirable.
  2. We don't need to make a steel sword, an iron sword could do.

Either way you would definitely need carbon, but as you say that's pretty easy. I don't think any of the other elements are absolutely required.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Those are all of them, but that's for a lot of different types of steels. You don't have to have all of those metals to make steel. You really just need iron and a tiny bit of carbon. A few of your ingredients help with purity, and the rest are additives for different steel properties you may want. Like a touch of nickel for stainless steel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I searched for ingredients for making steel. I'm obviously not a metallurgist, nor do I pretend to be one on the internet :)

The meme triggered my interest into discovering just what might be involved.

Clearly I've just scratched the surface ..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This thread is giving me massive deja vu. I'm pretty sure I read almost this exact thing six months ago.

Beep boop are you a bot?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Me, nope, just bored.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

You only need iron and carbon the rest is already alloyed steel. You can definitely make a good blade out of only iron and carbon, it won't be stainless, it might be difficult to harden just right, but it will be flexible and hold a keen edge if forged right. The smiths of ole dealt with nastier steels containing all kinds of things making it worse, not better (such as excessive amounts of sulphur and phosphorus) so I'd say they'd manage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Well, the non-metals and Manganese are way more available than iron anyway (probably molybdenum too). But it will be really difficult to create high-quality steel.