Does ferrous actually mean magnetic? I always thought it meant containing iron? How could Nickel and Cobalt be ferrous if they are elements and not alloys?

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.worksOP
      4·
      2 days ago

      Half of the websites when I google and sometimes the AI summary depending on how it’s googled. This became a debate with my wife last night. I said only iron is ferrous she said showed a bunch of references to Nickel and Cobalt as ferrous.

      I also found this in Wikipedia, which seems the most likely reason for the terminology confusion:

      In chemistry, the term is largely obsolete, but it often means iron, cobalt, and nickel, also called the iron triad;[1]. It may sometimes refer to other elements that resemble iron in some chemical aspects, such as the stable group 8 elements

      • brendansimms@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yea it seems like including Ni and Co as ‘ferrous’ materials is only done in certain industries/applications. From a pure chemistry point of view, only iron (Fe) is ferrous. [source: got bachelors in chem]. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, some people/industries [incorrectly] use the term ‘ferrous’ to mean magnetic, but the actual term is ‘ferromagnetic’. Lots of the old terminology (lots of latin) is still used even though we now know they are technically incorrect.