Electropolishing is one of those things that most of us have no idea exists, and yet is all around us.
Not literally (at least I hope you’re not suspended in a charged chemical bath right now), but metal bits that have been electropolished are everywhere. It was used on parts in our appliances, our cars, and the surgeon’s tools being used to cut us open.
At the bottom of the infographic, a little bubble states that electropolishing is 30 times more corrosion resistant that passivation. This is somewhat confusing, because electropolishing is a method of passivation. Passivation means that a material is more “passive” or less susceptible to corrosive elements in the environment, and electroplating certainly does that. The infographic makers probably had some specific method of passivation in mind, but I guess we’ll never know.
Electropolishing would never work without the ability to manipulate electric charge, and where would the rest of the world be without magnets? Explore that alternate universe with this infographic, and I’ll add that we would be toast without the earth’s magnetic field to protect us from cosmic rays.
