Question

Why do we use cooking utensils made up of copper?

Answer 1

Metals like copper, aluminium, brass, steel, etc. are good conductors of heat and electricity. Whereas non-metals like ebonite and wood are bad conductors of heat and electricity. This basic information can be used to find the reason behind using the cooking utensils made up of copper.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Cooking utensils are generally made up of metals like copper, aluminium, steel, brass, etc. We know, metals are good conductors of heat and electricity because of which heat easily conducts through the base of the metals to the contents in it and heat the contents much faster. Due to which the cooking takes less time. The handles of these cooking utensils are generally made up of non-metals such as wood, ebonite, etc. which are bad conductors of heat.
Hence, we use cooking utensils of copper because those are good conductors of heat.

Additional Information: Some materials conduct heat better than other materials since resistivity of every material is different. When we compare the thermal conductivity of steel and copper, copper has much greater thermal conductivity than steel. Copper, brass and steel are preferred to make cooking utensils. Tin is used to cover the copper, brass or steel surface so that corrosion can be prevented.

Note: Most of the non-metals are bad conductors of heat and electricity. But graphite is an exception to this which conducts electricity and heat. Now-a-days pans made up of stainless steel have become much popular as compared to pans completely made up of copper. Copper is relatively expensive. It is unsafe to digest more than a tiny amount of copper. Thus, stainless steel pans are preferred.