Uses of Iron (Fe) in Everyday Life

Iron at work around you

Every use below comes straight from the full Iron study page, where each point also carries the chemistry behind it and an exam-style question. Skim the list here; open the full page when revision time comes.

Uses of Iron in the study notes

• Reinforcing concrete — every RCC pillar, beam and slab in Bangladesh, from village homes to the Padma Bridge, is poured around a skeleton of steel rods, because concrete is strong in compression but weak in tension.
• Stainless steel — iron alloyed with about 18% chromium and 8% nickel makes the rust-proof cutlery, sinks, hospital instruments and water tanks of everyday life.
• Railway lines, ship plates, girders and agricultural tools — steel in its countless grades remains, by a huge margin, the most-used metal on Earth.
• Iron-folic acid tablets — Bangladesh’s school health programme gives weekly iron tablets to adolescent girls because iron is the core of haemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood.

Where you meet it

• A drop of your own blood — each of its millions of red cells carries about 270 million haemoglobin molecules, every one built around an iron atom.
• The rods poking out of any half-finished building, the rail line at a level crossing and the karai in the kitchen are all iron at different strengths.
• Spinach, lentils and dates — the iron a Bengali plate draws from dal and shak replenishes the few milligrams the body loses every day.