3 ms·

Sodium hydroxide in water.

• bell-cot 4y ago
  So pretty harmless (in context) itself. Might you have any sense for the waste product stream (from the NaOH and impurities in the real-world iron ore), and its major issues?
  • pjc50 4y ago
    NaOH is the classic drain cleaner. You wouldn't want to just dump it in the river, but it's dilutable/neutralizable to harmlessness. Handily, it also reacts (slowly) with CO2 directly out of the air to harmless sodium carbonate. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405656116300578 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240565611... The rest of the waste stream is just slag. That's just dumped in big piles in the open air https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/slag-what-it-good https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/slag-what-it-good , although occasionally someone proposes going through it again for different minerals such as rare earths.