Cookware: Why not Copper instead of Titanium, Aluminium or Stainless Steel?

Question

Currently there are three major materials for hiking/lightweight cookware ruling the market:

• Aluminium
• Titanium
• Stainless Steel

Each of those materials has several advantages and disadvantages:

• Aluminium is very lightweight, cheap, has a great heat conductivity but it stands in discussion about dangers of Alzheimer's Disease. At least, it is easy to clean.
• Titanium is lightweight also, is not poisonous but is a bad heat conductor and difficult to clean.
• Stainless Steel is more heavy than the others, is hygienically great but is also not a good heat conductor (at least, better than titanium).

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So my question is:

Why are we not using Copper instead of the three materials above?

• Copper is lightweight.
• Copper is the best heat conductor you can get.
• Copper seems to not cause any risk to health.

Answer 1

Copper is about the same density as stainless. It is relatively toxic so is always coated for cooking. Copper and copper compounds are used for sea water boat hulls because it kills or repels barnacles, etc. The traditional pewter/tin coating on copper cookware can fairly easily be melted on an open fire leaving some bare copper. Stainless clad copper is very durable but a very expensive alternative to lighter aluminum. PS ; it is not easy to recoat with pewter and get a good looking result.

Answer 2

In the question, you have stated several false and-or dubious claims:

Copper is lightweight

Copper is more dense ("heavier") than all of the three listed alternatives; it has density of 8.9 ^g/_cm³, which is higher than aluminum (2.7 ^g/_cm³), steel (7.7 to 8.1 ^g/_cm³) and titanium (4.5 ^g/_cm³).

Copper is the best heat conducter [sic] you can get

There actually are better heat conductors than copper, they are just not applicable: for example silver (expensive), diamond (prohibitively expensive and challenging to machine into shapes resembling cookware), boron arsenide (used for cooling systems of electronic components; while arsenic itself is highly toxic and carcinogenic, boron arsenide is supposedly inert and non-toxic, but brittle and difficult to machine, and even if it was possible to make cookware from it, I wouldn't trust it). What is more, thermal conductivity does not really matter that much in cooking because the limiting factor for cooking speed is the amount of heat generated per time unit by the burner, not the thermal conductivity of the cookware. This is not an overclocked processor nor a nuclear reactor, just an ordinary gas burner with a metal pot.

Copper seems to not cause any risk to health

Please do at least minimum amount of research before asking questions on SE. A quick few-minutes-long read on Wikipedia proves that it is not true. It is an essential element and is not hyper-toxic (you won't drop dead after eating a single dish cooked in copper pot), but excess intake causes a wide range of adverse effects, so yes, copper can definitely harm one's health.

Copper is not that reactive, but nonetheless it can slowly leach from the cookware into foods and liquids being cooked. Low pH and presence of anions such as chloride facilitates this process.

One of the reasons is that pure copper is soft and mechanically inferior to the listed alternatives, especially steel. What it more, water-soluble copper salts have an unpleasant bitter taste, so besides toxicity risks, they can also adversely affect taste of the food and fluids being cooked in the pot.

Answer 3

Copper cookware IS used for cooking (at least, in the mediterranean culture I am native to). For people familiar with this, it is considered obvious that:

1. It is not lightweight at any rate. The copper is both denser than the steel and less rigid, so the same container must be made from thicker metal sheet.

2. It HAS to be tin-coated. Tin coating is not very durable, so it has to be periodically maintained. Tin cover is also particularily vulnerable to harsh cleaning methods.

Compromised tin coating makes the food blue (it becomes untasty before it is really dangerous to eat). Sour things are not to be left in copper containers for any substantial amount of time.

3. The only reason these things exist is that it was once easier to make them from copper. They are inferior to anything modern.

All these things combined make copper cookware quite unsuitable for hiking, even if it is sometimes used for cooking at home.

Answer 4

Copper has another undesirable property: it's an excellent electrical conductor and also has a quite high standard electrode potential, which means it will happily create electrochemical cells when in contact with other metals. This usually happens when you put different utensils together in a dish washer: metals which normally don't oxydize, such as stainless steel, may oxydize when they are in contact with materials with a higher potential, such as silver or copper.

Answer 5

I joined this community, because I fel no one has answered the question. There's a few answers about "diamond being more conductive than copper" and "copper is slightly toxic, but so are other metals" which I found un-helpful. More people criticizing the asker than answering the intent of the question.

Answer: Copper is Expensive

Surprised this was not mentioned. Copper is superior for cookware, but is expensive. You'll notice in high quality cookware they use copper cores, e.g. "All-Clad Copper Core Cookware".

Copper provides the highest thermal conductivity among non-noble metals and is therefore fast heating with unparalleled heat distribution

Using modern metal bonding techniques, such as cladding, copper is frequently incorporated into cookware constructed of primarily dissimilar metal, such as stainless steel, often as an enclosed diffusion layer

Stainless steel is sometimes critiqued for compromising the efficacy of the copper.

Aluminum has 61 percent of the conductivity of copper, but has only 30 percent of the weight of copper.

Stainless steel has 10 percent of the conductivity of copper, and has about 88 percent of the weight of copper.

So the negatives for copper are: (1) it is heavier, (2) more expensive. Copper is more reactive, but pretty much all modern cookware coats copper. Is it also worth mentioning that copper looks cooler.

Copper is lightweight. [True-ish] It is the heaviest of all the common cookware metals, but only marginally heavier than stainless steal. Should pose no carrying issues, unless you are carrying a ton of pats/pans.

Copper is the best heat conductor you can get. [True] Within reason of course.

Copper seems to not cause any risk to health. [True-ish] Yes, modern copper pots and pans will not pose and serious health risks, no-more-so than other metals.

Answer 6

Drinking water and eating food from copper utensils is considered safe, although copper can keep meals warm for an extended period. Cooking salty foods in copper vessels, on the other hand, is not recommended because the iodin in salt quickly reacts with copper, releasing more copper particles. As a result, you must exercise caution when cooking with such equipment. Excessive copper consumption can be lethal. Ingesting excessive amounts of copper salts through your skin could result in serious poisoning. Copper can accumulate in your brain, liver, and lungs after passing through your internal organs. Copper poisoning can make people extremely ill.

The material is stainless steel. Stainless steel is one of the most widely available and excellent cooking vessels that you should consider.