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Comment by stop50 | Hacker News Reader

why should stainless steel require pfas?

Stainless steel is expensive, roughly a factor of 10 compared to plain steel. The reason is that Chromium is expensive. You can use low-chromium not-so-stainless steel if you then coat it with transparent paint containing among other things, PFAS, and save a ton of money on the material.

Edit: the prototypical stainless steel is Cr/Ni 18/10 with 18% chromium and 10% nickel, aka V2A or 1.4301

Straws require ridiculously small amounts of raw materials though, if you choose a material that increases the steel price by $1000/ton, then that adds a single extra cent to the costs of a 10g metal straw which then retails for a dollar a piece.

So you're saying you can cut it out and increase profit by a percentage point? That's pretty huge.

I recall finance going ballistic on my division at one point because our profit margin dropped by a tenth of a percentage point (and yet was still well above fifty)

99.999% of corporations are way too wasteful to be complaining about a tenth of a percent on 50%+ margin.

Think of the savings of slashing that finance department staff :)

With 8 billion in revenue it hit differently I guess, yeah.

Sounds about right. Most grills out here are $200-400, but will rust and fall apart within a couple years in my climate (humidity is insane here).

For $2000-4000, you can buy real stainless steel grills that are warrantied to last 15+ years, not 1 year.

Hard to sell people on spending 10x the cost when they can just buy, abuse, replace after 3-5 years what they already have.

Certainly. Especially when they load the cheap stuff with all the useless Bluetooth/wireless smart phone app crap. I guess people think a crappy grill with flashy widgets and an app is the next best thing. Or maybe it's what companies think people want.

I mean I have a pretty standard $250 or so Weber. No bells and whistles, no apps. It takes propane and has enough surface for me to do 8 patties comfortably and has a small rack above it for things that just need to be warmed up more or less. I like having things that last but it's going on idk...year 4 now? And I just need to replace grates at this point. I just can't see myself buying a $1000+ grill because I don't grill every day/week and the $250 has done perfectly well for me. I don't think it's safe to assume tons of folks want bluetooth for their grill and that's what drives them to go cheap.

I don't think this really happens.

To provide additional resistance to corrosion/staining.

That sounds unlikely. It's not how stainless steel works; to bond a coating to the surface of the stainless you have to fight the stainlessness pretty hard.

One of the best indicators for not so stainless stainless steel is a coarse texture to aid in that bonding. Even some fairly expensive brands of vacuum flask exhibit this. Only way to be sure that I know of is a knife.

Generally, the easiest way is with a magnet. The most corrosion-resistant of the common stainless steels are austenitic. These steels are not ferromagnetic, or very weakly ferromagnetic if they have been cold worked. Cheaper and less corrosion-resistant ferritic stainless steels are strongly ferromagnetic.

Martensitic stainless steels are less corrosion resistant than austenitic steels and are ferromagnetic, but they're used for good reason. Unlike other types, martensitic steels are hardenable through heat treatment, making them the only suitable choice for many sharp-edged tools or parts subject to severe abrasion. Stainless steel cutlery is most commonly an 18/0 ferritic grade, but premium cutlery may be an 18/10 austenitic. Kitchen knives are invariably martensitic, because ferritic or austenitic grades wouldn't hold a sharp edge.

You mean by scraping it and seeing if it rusts, or something else?

Well there wasn’t any PFAS with the stainless steel straws.

Some pretty nasty accidents have already happened with stainless steel straws... doesn't take much imagination.

Where did someone suggest it did?

The article suggested it is a concern, and then resolved the concern.

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