NW Illinois Stephenson county | I watched a Mondern Marvels on Iron the other day. It was quite interesting. They mashed, mixed, and centrifuged some "iron fortified cereal" and showed that the manufacturers used iron filings to fortify the cereal. So the question they posed was how iron is used in our bodies and why we don't oxidize (rust). The iron is used to form "hemas" and a matrix type sheild "globbins" is formed around the "hemas" forming Hemaglobbins. So Oxygen is attracted to the "hemas" formed out of iron, but the bond is weak because the "globbins" keep the Oxygen from getting too close. Because this bond is weak the Oxygen is carried by Hemaglobbins throughout the body and is easily grabbed by whatever needs the Oxygen in the body. This is why we don't rust and we would be dead if not for the Hemaglobbins in our bodies.
A some what similar almost mechanical type of situation is when iron is formed in a blast furnace and coking coal ( I think ) is added and you obtain high carbon steel. In this case a Carbon atom ends up being placed in the Iron atom between Iron's nucleus and the electron cloud preventing Oxygen from getting too close to the Iron and oxidizing and forming rust. Now days they add small amounts of other elements in varying proportions to obtain a myriad of different qualities of steel like, degree of brittleness, lighter weights of steel with stronger attributes, or different heat resistances for example.
My question is how does iron enter the plant and how is it used and/or distributed through ot the plant? and is iron availibility affected by different elements because of similar interactions like the two examples above? Just curious. |
Iron forms in soil and plant growth???
