Incinerating in aluminum

[Rag and Bone]

Picked up an old metal pan I thought was stainless. Turns out it was aluminum.

Why is stainless steel advised for incineration rather than aluminum :?:

 

[Harold_V]

If you incinerate at the temperature that will combust carbon, you'll melt the aluminum pan. Aluminum is best kept out of the gold refining circuit. It creates terrible problems with filtration.

Plain steel pans will work in lieu of stainless, but they have a short lifespan when heated appropriately. Stainless is easy to identify----it weighs considerably more, and has a generally yellow cast to the alloy. It's unlikely you' would be able to cut it with a knife, although you may raise a small burr. Aluminum is light in weight and quite white in color. It is also quite soft, easily cut with a knife.

I also do not recommend cast iron. It suffers from thermal shock, and takes considerable heating to raise the temperature adequately. Thin stainless pans are the best choice.

Harold

 

[Oz]

I agree with everything Harold said, but if you are still not sure if it is stainless or aluminum a magnet is your friend.

 

[Rag and Bone]

Stainless isn't magnetic. I checked it before I bought it. It was so heavy I figured it was stainless.

 

[Oz]

There are indeed many types of stainless steel most of which are magnetic, just not to the degree an iron nail would be. It is far from definitive but can give a positive indication that it is not Al. A strong hard drive magnet may be better than a generic as many alloys are less magnetic than typical iron.

 

[Lou]

It's a crapshoot on whether stainless is magnetic or not. Most of the 304-316 stuff is not magnetic.

However, there are many stainless alloys that are magnetic (nickel and cobalt stainless steels with minimal vanadium).

Lou

 

[Harold_V]

It's a crapshoot on whether stainless is magnetic or not. Most of the 304-316 stuff is not magnetic.

Heavily work hardened 300 series stainless, including 302, 303, 304, 416, 321 and 347, are slightly magnetic, so magnetism alone isn't a safe way to determine stainless or stainless grades. Almost all other alloys of stainless are magnetic, including the precipitation hardening varieties.

Harold