When buying stainless steel tableware, you will often see the words "304 stainless steel". Some businesses say "304 stainless steel is food-grade stainless steel", and some say "316 stainless steel is better than 304 stainless steel", so what are these messy numbers? And "food-grade" and what is the relationship?
The stainless steel used for tableware and kitchenware are 304, 316, 420, etc., because tableware does not require strong stress resistance and corrosion resistance, and the use of temperature is not very high, for stainless steel, which is a very low temperature, so the materials used are actually very cheap and commonly used. Many people still do not understand food-grade stainless steel, there are several types of food-grade stainless steel, and 304 stainless steel what is the difference.
304, is the brand name of stainless steel, the United States name. It's Chinese brand name is 06Cr19Ni10, very complicated, very difficult to read, so we are more accustomed to call "304 stainless steel". 304 stainless steel and food-grade 304 stainless steel the same? Not the same! Food grade and grade, belong to two systems, but there are inextricably linked.
The same applies to stainless steel, where the grade determines the corrosion resistance of the stainless steel. And whether it is food grade, in addition to the requirements for the corrosion resistance of stainless steel, there are also requirements for the precipitation index of five heavy metals: lead, chromium, nickel, cadmium and arsenic. Later it was found that the stainless steel that can meet the requirements of heavy metal precipitation, are able to meet the requirements of the grade. So in the national standard GB9684-2011 "Food Safety National Standard Stainless Steel Products", the grade requirements were eliminated, only the heavy metal precipitation requirements (but it is a different way of saying, in fact, and the old national standard requirements are similar), so the stainless steel used in today's tableware, is not required for the grade, but at the same time, as long as it is able to reach food grade, it must be able to achieve at least 304 stainless steel The level of. Now look again, food-grade 304 stainless steel is to meet the heavy metal precipitation standards 304 stainless steel; and ordinary 304 stainless steel, is not tested by the national standard GB 9684.
As can be seen from the table, the harmful elements include arsenic, cadmium, lead, chromium, nickel and other five elements, as long as the five elements in the test solution does not exceed the value specified in the table, you can claim that the material is food-grade stainless steel. When we buy tableware (in fact, "tableware" is not quite standard, it should be "food contact stainless steel"), we should mainly look at its packaging has no "GB4806.9-2016 "The words, only after the testing of the product, we can buy with confidence.