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Salt, Steel, and the Slow Art of Decay
Four weeks in a salt-spray chamber have turned this galvanized nut and bolt into a tiny chemical landscape. The protective zinc coating, meant to sacrifice itself first, has reacted with chloride-rich droplets to form pale crusts of zinc salts, while tiny fractures in the layer let moisture and oxygen bite into the steel beneath, blooming into deep orange iron oxides. What looks like erosion is really a slow conversation between metal and sea water — corrosion chemistry made visible, one crystal and flake of rust at a time.
Salt, Steel, and the Slow Art of Decay
Four weeks in a salt-spray chamber have turned this galvanized nut and bolt into a tiny chemical landscape. The protective zinc coating, meant to sacrifice itself first, has reacted with chloride-rich droplets to form pale crusts of zinc salts, while tiny fractures in the layer let moisture and oxygen bite into the steel beneath, blooming into deep orange iron oxides. What looks like erosion is really a slow conversation between metal and sea water — corrosion chemistry made visible, one crystal and flake of rust at a time.