Somebody needs to tell Bitspower...

[aspire]

Um, no they will corrode, not fast but they will.

The green that builds up on brass is corrosion, Nickle and Silver do to, silver gets black, nickle to a small extent does too. (NO, NO, NO, WRONG)

Gold, besides platinum is one of the least reactive metals commonly found, opposite of things like aluminum or Sodium and potasium.


Now the real question is how fast does corrosion happen, for our purposes, lets say 1 year life span, because most of us are gear whores.

Gold, Nickle and Silver won't show signs of corrosion. Brass will have starts of corrosion, but again it's minor.

So "Will they corrode?" The answer is very dependent on expected life span.

But the real question should be... How Bling do you want to be?

No, your confusing oxidation or tarnishing, with corrosion.

These are completely different.

Tarnishing is simply a reaction between the very surface of a metal and oxygen which causes discoloration and a change in chemical properties. Might it eat away some of the metal, sure, but we're talking about a thickness measured in thousandth's of an inch.
Now in regards to corrosion...

In a water cooling loop where you are mixing metals the less noble metal is the one which will be corroded (eaten away).

In the case of Aluminum and Copper, Aluminum is the less noble and is the one which will show the signs of pitting, and corrosion.

The copper will lose it's shine because the aluminum particles in the loop act like sand blasting on it's surface.

Also Aluminum should never even be compared to Sodium, or Potassium.These are alkali metals, and react violently with water. A liquid cooling loop that uses solely aluminum is perfectly safe. Finding aluminum blocks is not easy as the consumers have boycotted it's use as there is simply no point.

Get your facts straight and don't spread false truths about corrosion, it just makes my job harder than it needs to be.

 

[saltynay]

Actually Aspire its electrochemical nature of an element which leads to its corrosion rate and if you combine gold and aluminium the aluminium will become the sacrificial anode and corrode whilst the gold remains untouched. That is until all the aluminium has eroded and can no longer act as an anode.

Electrochemical decomposition

 

[hikaricloud]

Silver looks better anyway.

 

[aspire]

Actually Aspire its electrochemical nature of an element which leads to its corrosion rate and if you combine gold and aluminium the aluminium will become the sacrificial anode and corrode whilst the gold remains untouched. That is until all the aluminium has eroded and can no longer act as an anode.

Electrochemical decomposition

Of course, the difference is in the Nobility of the metals. Metals that are further apart on the Galvanic scale will corrode more quickly and agressively and the one that is actually "eroded" is always the less noble of the 2.

Be it copper, gold, silver, nickel, all are nobler than aluminum.

 

[saltynay]

Maybe its a difference between American and English terminology but I don't believe nobler is a word. You get noble gasses which are gasses with a full orbital structure thus making the element unreactive as it is in a state of neutrality and equilibrium but it is a factual term e.g. black and white either it is noble or its not.

nobler - definition of nobler by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Corrosion is due to a bimetallic electrolyte being formed and as the electrons are released the donar metal is lost and corrodes it is a branch of from redox reactions.
This can be used to our advantage such as lead batteries and lithium batteries.

A graphite bar acts as the anode, a bar of lithium cobaltate acts as the cathode, and a polymer, swollen with a lithium salt, allows the passage of ions and serves as the electrolyte. In this cell, the carbon in the anode can reversibly form a lithium-carbon alloy. Upon discharging, lithium ions spontaneously leave the lithium cobaltate cathode and travel through the polymer and into the carbon anode forming the alloy. This flow of positive lithium ions is the electrical current that the battery provides. By charging the cell, the lithium dealloys and travels back into the cathode. The advantage of this kind of battery is that Lithium possess the highest negative value of standard reduction potential. It is also a light metal and therefore less mass is required to generate 1 mole of electrons.

It is also used for hydrogen fuel cells

Anode: 2H2 ---> 4H + 4e-
Cathode: O2 + 4e- + 4 H+ ---> 2H2O
Overall reaction: 2H2 + O2 ---> 2H2O

 

[Evolv]

^ Far out man

 

[aspire]

Straight from wikipedia.

The term can also be used in a relative sense. A "Galvanic series" is a hierarchy of metals (or other electrically conductive materials, including composites and semimetals) that runs from noble to active, and allows designers to see at a glance how materials will interact in the environment used to generate the series. In this sense of the word, graphite is more noble than silver (even though it is alchemically more base) and the relative nobility of many materials is highly dependent upon context, as for aluminium and stainless steel in conditions of varying pH.

Refers mainly to where a metal lies in the Galvanic Series.

Again it may not follow the dictionary definition of what is noble and what isn't but it's a phrase adopted for use in describing how reactive a metal may be when in contact with other metals, I.E. two noble, or "nobler" metals; and two active or "more active" metals would generally be safe in close contact with each other, however mixing metals far apart on the galvanic scale will quickly lead to corrosion of the less noble or "more active" of the two.

 

[HAVOC]

We'll be right back after a few messages from our sponsors!

 

[Luke]

^lol, i was gonna say something like that....i don't wanna get into the discussion though, just add to the confusion...

 

[saltynay]

The galvanic scale is the electrochemical scale that has been heavily simplified. If you can work with the electrochemical scale you can predict rates of corrosion between elements in a bimetallic circuit through knowing a measurable amount of potential voltage.

It is like the model of the atom is taught to many as being a nucleus with a set of circular rings of electrons, which slowly build up along the period as more electrons are added known as the bohr model. Although not wrong its not the complete structure and its simplified nature leads to it being restrictive.

Actually the electons have a precitable field of movement although it is said to be impossible to say where an electron will be at an exact moment around the atom, orbitals can be used to predict the area in which the electron is most likely to be. The atomic structure changes between elements much more radically and is not always linear there are some electrons that drop the energy level from there systematic orbital in favour of a more stable atom. This is a more accurate model of the atom which is widely accepted

It could just be a case that you are American and the terminology over the pond is different to the motherland both our methods seem to work.