Stainless steel has penetrated into all aspects of people’s lives. 304 stainless steel is also widely known as food-grade stainless steel. Now merchants often promote 316 stainless steel. What is the difference between them.
Stainless steel is a kind of alloy steel
The “stainless steel” we usually say is called “stainless acid-resistant steel”. To make the steel not rust, it is actually very simple, just add some metal impurities to make alloy steel (such as adding chromium). But not rusting, it only means that it will not be corroded by air, and the ability is still too poor. So we also need it to be resistant to chemical corrosion, so “stainless acid-resistant steel” appeared. To make stainless acid-resistant steel, many kinds of metals need to be added, and different metal formulas form different stainless steels.
304 and 316 are both austenitic stainless steels
Stainless steel is often divided into: martensitic steel, ferritic steel, austenitic steel, austenitic-ferritic (duplex) stainless steel and precipitation hardening stainless steel according to the structure state. In addition, it can be divided into: chromium stainless steel, chromium-nickel stainless steel and chromium-manganese-nitrogen stainless steel according to the composition. Among them, austenitic stainless steel has the best comprehensive performance and no magnetism, so it is the most widely used in our daily life. 304 and 316 belong to austenitic stainless steel.
304 and 316
The anti-corrosion ability of 304 stainless steel is already very strong, and it is positioned as a “food-grade” metal by the national standard – normal contact with water, tea, coffee, milk, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, etc. is no problem. 316 stainless steel is a further upgrade on this basis (controlling the proportion of impurities and adding molybdenum) to make it more resistant to corrosion. It can withstand all kinds of strong acids and alkalis except oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea. Not only that, 316 stainless steel has better adaptability to the environment. Too high or too low temperature will not affect the corrosion resistance of 316 stainless steel. But the 316 has higher production costs and higher prices.
Comprehensive consideration of cost performance
For food steel, 304 is enough, and there are almost no defects; the use of 316 in this regard is purely overkill, and the aspect that 316 is stronger than 304 is not reflected at all. Therefore, when consumers choose products, they can make comprehensive judgments according to their needs and cost-effectiveness, and choose suitable products.
Post time: May-17-2022