Can I melt some kind of metal at home?

Answer

Hello Wolf,

Yes, of course. Tin is indeed a good example. You can go to an electrical store and buy a soldering iron: it reaches a temperature of about 300°C (varies from model to model). Since tin has a melting temperature of 232°C, you can melt tin with it. Soldering is the joining of small metal parts (for example an electrical circuit on a switchboard) using tin.

There are also metals with an even lower melting point. Gallium, for example, already melts at about 30°C and thus becomes liquid in your hand. Or what about mercury, which melts at about -40°C and is therefore liquid at room temperature?

On this website you can find the melting temperatures of all pure substances from the periodic table of the elements:
http://www.eclecticsite.be/calc/periodic.htm

Based on this website, can you also think why the wire of a light bulb consists of tungsten? For the same reason, the metal is also used in the construction of, for example, jet engines.

Regards,
Benjamin