Why isn’t stainless steel attracted to a magnet? Stainless steel contains a high amount of iron. Isn’t that enough to make it attracted to a magnet?
In: Chemistry
This is why you need to be careful with stainless steel pans, particularly older ones, if you buy an induction hob. Cheap modern stainless pans (like aluminium pans) have a steel or iron disc in the base; better modern stainless pans use stainless steel which is not austenitic. But if you have good old pans, you might find they either don’t work or don’t work well.
When I bought an indiction hob I gave my (non-induction-using) daughters my lovely early 1990s Spring pans, because they don’t work. Spring pans are a sandwich of stainless and aluminium; the modern Spring pans do work, but they had to change the formulation of the stainless steel. I think it used to be 18/10 inside and out, now 18/10 inside and 18/0 outside? Something like that.
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