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While the precise origins of steel remain a mystery, with credit given to blacksmiths in various cultures throughout history, including China, India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and Britain during the Industrial Revolution, the accidental invention of stainless steel is a captivating narrative.
Steel may be incredibly tough – not to mention ductile and tensile – but that doesn’t mean it is invincible. Steel is essentially made by adding carbon to iron, and iron inevitably will rust. For many, many years, metallurgists around the world attempted to overcome this frustrating obstacle.
Experimentation with adding other elements to iron was fairly common, with moderate success. However, it wasn’t until 1912 that a reliable method of mass-producing rust-proof steel was discovered. And it was entirely by accident.
Of course, ‘inventor’ is an ambiguous term, especially with something as ubiquitous and elementary as steel. Corrosion-resistant steel – an alloy of iron and chromium – was first recognised in 1821 by Pierre Berthier, a French metallurgist.
Despite this discovery, metallurgists of the time were unable to find the balance of high chromium and low carbon that makes modern stainless steel so effective. The products they were producing were too brittle for practical use.
In 1872, two Englishmen named Clark and Woods patented an alloy is very close to the modern equivalent of stainless steel – a combination of chromium (30-35%) and tungsten (2%).
For the next 40 years, more developments were made around the world, each noting the relationship between chromium and steel and the rust-proof result of a marriage between the two. However, these efforts were tedious and despite many patents being registered, no alloys were mass-produced or marketed to the general public.
Then Harry Brearly came along.
Harry Brearly worked out of the Brown-Firth research factory in the industrial town of Sheffield, England. It was here that he spent countless hours seeking a strong alloy suitable for gun barrels, which were then known to wear down easily. This was not a simple task.
His efforts lasted months, and while the pile of scrap metal next to his work bench rusted, he noticed something strange – a barrel gleaming amongst them.
He pulled the shining barrel from the rusted heap and studied it. This particular sample contained roughly 12.8% chromium and 0.24% carbon. At that time, to properly inspect the microstructure of alloys they had to be polished and etched. This could be achieved by exposing it to a dilute solution of nitric acid in alcohol. However, this sample, he saw, was very resistant to chemical attack.
Within three weeks he perfected a hardening process for the alloy. He named the invention “rustless steel”.
At the time, Sheffield was known for its production of quality cutlery, and in this market, Brearly quickly saw a place for his invention. Back then, cutlery was usually made from steel or silver. Steel would rust easily and had to be cleaned constantly to avoid contamination. Silver, on the other hand, was far too expensive for most people.
Brearly approached an old friend, Ernest Stuart, with his invention. Stuart was manager at R.F Mosley’s at Portland Works, a cutlery works in Sheffield. He tested Brearly’s alloy in a vinegar solution and when it remained unmolested he dubbed it “stainless steel.”
The discovery was announced two years later in a January 1915 newspaper article in The New York Times which described the metal as “non-rusting, unstainable and untarnishable”. In the same year, Brearly applied for a patent in the US, only to find there was already one registered by metallurgist Elwood Haynes.
Haynes and Brearly pulled together their funding and took their invention to prospective investors. They soon formed the American Stainless Steel Corporation. By 1929, over 25,000 tons of stainless steel were manufactured and sold in the US alone.
If you’re as interested in steel as we are, you can also have a read of our article on how steel is made.
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A confident look passes across your face, maybe the slightest hint of a cheeky grin, victory is in sight my friend! This is the question that makes you a million, wins you that holiday of a lifetime, gives you the title of office genius, or gets you that elusive slice of pie on the Trivial Pursuit board.
Since the dawn of man colonies have raced against each other to uncover new technologies, to be the first to stamp their names on a discovery, and although we’ve evolved over millions of years, (most of us, anyway), the urge to be the first remains at the very core of our nature. This sense of passion and pride can lead some of the more unscrupulous humans to claim others discoveries as their own. Of course many breakthroughs are genuinely made in tandem, or are simultaneously occurring, but unless you can categorically prove that you were the pioneer of these incredible findings, then the other party involved will always dispute the fact.
And so we come to stainless steel.
The first point to note is that ‘inventor’ is a very ambiguous term. Is this the first person to think, to document, to patent, or to produce? The second point is that stainless steel wasn’t truly defined until 1911, so are we to cast aside those chromium-iron alloys that don’t quite meet the minimum requirement of 10.5% chromium?
It seems like anyone and everyone has a different claim to being labelled the ‘inventor’ of stainless steel; from Britain, Germany, France, Poland, the U.S.A., and even Sweden.
The cogs were set in motion by Englishmen Stoddart and Faraday circa 1820 and Frenchman Pierre Berthier in 1821. These scientists, among others, noted that iron-chromium alloys were more resistant to attack by certain acids, but tests were only carried out on low chromium content alloys. Attempts to produce higher chromium alloys failed primarily because of scientists not understanding the importance of low carbon content.
In 1872 another pair of Englishmen, Woods and Clark, filed for patent of an acid and weather resistant iron alloy containing 30-35% chromium and 2% tungsten, effectively the first ever patent on what would now be considered a stainless steel. However, the real development came in 1875 when a Frenchman named Brustlein detailed the importance of low carbon content in successfully making stainless steel. Brustlein pointed out that in order to create an alloy with a high percentage of chromium, the carbon content must remain below around 0.15%.
Thus ensued two decades of stagnation for the development of stainless steel, and while many scientists attempted to create a low carbon stainless steel, none succeeded.
Hans Goldschmidt
It wasn’t until 1895, when Hans Goldschmidt of Germany developed the aluminothermic reduction process for producing carbon-free chromium, that development of stainless steels became a reality.
In 1904 French Scientist Leon Guillet undertook extensive research on many iron-chromium alloys.
Guillet’s work included studies on the composition of what would now be known as 410, 420, 442, 446 and 440-C. In 1906 Guillet went on to analyse iron-nickel-chrome alloys, which would now be considered the basics of the 300 series. However, while noting the chemical composition of his alloys, Guillet failed to acknowledge the potential corrosion resistance of his materials.
Albert Portevin
In 1909 Englishman Giesen published an in-depth work regarding chromium-nickel steels, while the French national, Portevin, studied what is now regarded as 430 stainless steel. However, it wasn’t until 1911 that the importance of a minimum chromium content was discovered by Germans P. Monnartz and W. Borchers. Monnartz and Borchers discovered the correlation between chromium content and corrosion resistance, stating that there was a significant boost in corrosion resistance when at least 10.5% chromium was present. The pair also published detailed works on the effects of molybdenum on corrosion resistance.
It is at this point we introduce Harry Brearley, born in Sheffield, England in 1871, he was appointed lead researcher at Brown Firth Laboratories in 1908. In 1912 Brearley was given a task by a small arms manufacturer who wished to prolong the life of their gun barrels which were eroding away too quickly. Brearley set out to create an erosion resistant steel, not a corrosion resistant one, and began experimenting with steel alloys containing chromium. During these experiments Brearley made several variations of his alloys, ranging from 6% to 15% chromium with differing levels of carbon.
On the 13th August 1913 Brearley created a steel with 12.8% chromium and 0.24% carbon, argued to be the first ever stainless steel. The circumstances in which Brearley discovered stainless steel are covered in myth; some enchanted tales of Brearley recite him tossing his steel into the rubbish, only to notice later that the steel hadn’t rusted to the extent of its counterparts, much like Alexander Fleming’s experience 15 years later.
Other more plausible, (but less attractive), accounts claim it was necessary for Brearley to etch his steels with nitric acid and examine them under a microscope in order to analyse their potential resistance to chemical attack. Brearley found that his new steel resisted these chemical attacks and proceeded to test the sample with other agents, including lemon juice and vinegar. Brearley was astounded to find that his alloys were still highly resistant, and immediately recognised the potential for his steel within the cutlery industry.
The Half Moon
Brearley struggled to win the support of his employers, instead choosing to produce his new steel at local cutler R. F. Mosley. He found difficulty producing knife blades in the new steel that did not rust or stain and turned to his old school friend, Ernest Stuart, Cutlery Manager at Mosley’s Portland Works, for help. Within 3 weeks, Stuart had perfected the hardening process for knives. Brearley had initially decided to name his invention ‘Rustless Steel’, but Stuart, dubbed it ‘Stainless Steel’ after testing the material in a vinegar solution, and the name stuck. And that’s how Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel…. well, not quite…
During the 5 year period between 1908 and Brearley’s discovery in 1913 many other scientists and metallurgists have potential claims to Brearley’s title.
In 1908 the Germans entered the fray, the Krupp Iron Works in Germany produced a chrome-nickel steel for the hull of the Germania yacht. The Half Moon, as the yacht is now known, has a rich history and currently lies on the seabed off the east coast of Florida. Whether the steel contains the minimum 10.5% chromium content remains inconclusive. Employees of the Krupp works, Eduard Maurer and Benno Strauss, also worked from 1912-1914 on developing austenitic steels using <1% carbon, <20% nickel and 15-40% chromium.
Not happy with Europe hogging the glory, the USA got in on the act. Firstly, Elwood Haynes, after becoming disenchanted at his rusty razor, set out to create a corrosion resistant steel, which he supposedly succeeded in doing during 1911. Two other Americans, Becket and Dantsizen, worked on ferritic stainless steels, containing 14-16% chromium and 0.07-0.15% carbon, in the years 1911-1914.
Elwood Haynes
During 1912 Max Mauermann of Poland is rumoured to have created the first stainless steel, which he later presented to the public during the Adria exhibition in Vienna, 1913.
Finally, a recently discovered article, which was published in a Swedish hunting and fishing magazine in 1913, discusses a steel used for gun barrels, (sound familiar?), which seems to resemble stainless steel. Although this is purely speculation, the Swedes have still made an audacious claim that they were in fact responsible for the first practical application for stainless steel.
That concludes the shambolic discovery of stainless steel! Although there is much mystery and speculation behind the discovery of this wonderful material, there is no question that without the combined effort of all the above scientists and metallurgists, (and all the many more that were not mentioned), we would not have such a rich and versatile metal at our fingertips.
Oh, and if we have to give you an answer to that first question? Harry Brearley.
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