Posted on 09/10/2023 12:38:42 PM PDT by algore
The Statue of Liberty, with its big torch, blue-green color and fancy hat, is one of the most recognizable landmarks on Earth.
But when it was first constructed as a gift from France in 1885, the statue had not yet acquired this color, doing so later as the result of chemistry. The idea of returning it to its original color is gaining a little attention on X (Twitter). So how has the color been altered over the years?
As a video from the American Chemical Society's YouTube channel Reactions explains, the original color of the Statue of Liberty was a rather magnificent copper.
"In her first few decades in the Big Apple, the statue slowly turned from that shiny copper color to a dull brown and then finally to the blue-green, or as they'd say back in France, 'verdigris', we see today," the American Chemical Society explains in their video.
Over the years, several reactions took place. First, the copper reacted with oxygen in the air. The copper gave up electrons to the oxygen, leading to the mineral cuprite, which is a pinkish red. After that, the cuprite gave up more electrons to oxygen, forming tenorite, which is black, causing the statue to become darker still. But that still isn't green.
The water in the atmosphere, when mixed with sulfur, turns to sulfuric acid. When this was mixed with copper oxides on the statue, it began to turn its distinctive green color. Chloride from the sea spray added to this, making the statue even greener.
The statue has remained this color for over 100 years because the exposed copper is now chemically stable, but underneath that layer, it is still the original bronze.
She doesn’t look happy in that view....
Paging Charleton Heston
Anna Torv was so fine in that show
So do I! Just leave her as she is!
There is a difference between patina and bronze corrosion (AKA bronze disease).
The bronze could be restored without taking away patina.
Send all of Bidenskyyyy’s illegals there to give it a bath. Teach the freeloaders that you just can’t sneak into America and demand whitey give you all the free stuff you want. Our ancestors never got a free ride and neither should they.
Nah. Send it back to France. We’ve got all the immigrants we can handle.
Damn right. Frank and Mike will give us a lot more for it if we leave the patina alone.
I have a few of these..
She was a racist slave owner. Why haven’t the Cancel Culture Club kids torn it down yet?
Don’t hire Kruger Industrial Smoothing...
There are thousands of roofs, downspouts, and drain pipes with the same color.
It’s what nature does to copper.
Patina is a good thing.
The statue, in and of itself, is fine. But the wretched, over-wrought “poetry” by Emma Lazarus associated with the statue has to go - it’s being used to excuse illegal immigration.
How?
How?
A metallurgist I dealt with ages ago explained the concept to me. Most of the various metals subject to corrosion and/or specifically oxidation have what is termed a sacrificial component. Some, like aluminum have it integral to the metal itself -- aluminum oxidizes densely enough to form its own protective coating.
As you mention, copper forms a patina. Some, like core-ten steel, are designed to rust so densely that the rust protects it. Poor zinc coated steel can develop rust in the long term bad enough that the protection fails. Other zinc on barbed wire may last a hundred years or more before rusting away. Some metals like gold do not oxidize enough (or at all) to fail.
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