How to choose surgical grade stainless steel cookware

Why You Should Be Careful When Choosing Cookware Surgical Grade Stainless Steel Cookware. Because surgical-grade stainless steel is stainless steel that meets the mandatory standards for food-grade materials, this stainless steel requires that the composition of raw materials and metal precipitation must meet food-grade standards.

The physical and chemical indicators of surgical-grade stainless steel that are in direct contact with food stipulate five types of elements, namely lead, chromium, nickel, pot, and arsenic. Each element has strict content indicators. If it exceeds the standard, it is considered unqualified.

What are the common surgical grade stainless steel models?

Stainless steel is often divided according to its organizational state: martensitic steel, ferritic steel, austenitic steel, austenitic-ferritic (duplex) stainless steel and precipitation hardened stainless steel, etc. Among them, austenitic stainless steel has the best overall performance, and 304 and 316 are both austenitic stainless steels.
304 stainless steel has very strong anti-corrosion capabilities and is classified as a “food grade” metal by the national standard – it is no problem in normal contact with water, tea, coffee, milk, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, etc. 316 stainless steel is a further upgrade on this basis (controlling the impurity ratio and adding molybdenum) to make it more corrosion-resistant. It can withstand all kinds of strong acids and alkalis except oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.

Several common models

304: 18/8 stainless steel. Products such as: corrosion-resistant containers, tableware, furniture, railings, and medical equipment. The standard composition is 18% chromium plus 8% nickel. It is a non-magnetic stainless steel whose metallographic structure cannot be changed by heat treatment. The GB grade is 06Cr19Ni10.

304 L: Same characteristics as 304, low carbon so it is more corrosion-resistant and easier to heat treat, but has poor mechanical properties.

304 N: It has the same characteristics as 304. It is a nitrogen-containing stainless steel. Nitrogen is added to improve the strength of the steel.

316: After 304, it is the second most widely used steel type. It is mainly used in the food industry, watch jewelry, pharmaceutical industry and surgical equipment. The addition of molybdenum element gives it a special corrosion-resistant structure. Because it has better resistance to chloride corrosion than 304, it is also used as “marine steel”. SS316 is usually used in nuclear fuel recovery devices.

316 L: Low carbon, so it is more corrosion-resistant and easy to heat treat. Products such as: chemical processing equipment, nuclear power generators, and refrigerant storage tanks.

Summarize

304 stainless steel cookware has met the needs of daily life, while 316 stainless steel cookware is more expensive. The most cost-effective one is 304 stainless steel cookware.

JIANGMEN CHANGWEN COOKWARE & KITCHENWARE CO., LTD. is a high-tech enterprise integrating the research and development, manufacturing, export trade and independent brand sales of stainless steel cookware. Its products are exported to more than 100 countries and regions including Europe and the United States, and it is one of the world’s important suppliers of stainless steel products. Please feel free to contact us if you need anything!