7 ms·
According to Wikipedia, iron ore is basically various oxides of iron, and humans use energy to de-oxidize it. So if you burn iron you're basically un-doing tha
by csense 3y ago
According to Wikipedia, iron ore is basically various oxides of iron, and humans use energy to de-oxidize it.
So if you burn iron you're basically un-doing that process.
Iron might be feasible as an energy storage system. Article says it has low specific energy so I'd question if it could ever really be feasible for transporting energy or useful as a vehicle fuel (for ground vehicles let alone aerospace).
If new geosurvey technology revealed a bunch of giant veins of pure un-oxidized iron, or if we start replacing all our steel buildings with plastic or carbon nanotubes or something and producing so much metal scrap and recycled steel that it starts ending up in landfills? Then it might be worth extracting the energy from iron. But neither of those scenarios seems particularly likely.
Also I'd be worried about temperature issues. If your iron burning engine is going to be, well, running hot enough to burn iron, you probably shouldn't make it out of steel. You'd need a material that's more expensive and harder to work. It's doable but seems like it would cause annoying fabrication issues and increase costs.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoIt could make sense in space (for rockets), if you're refining asteroids with free solar power, and have excess oxygen from cracking water.
- CommieBobDole 3y agoThis came up a while back here; the idea is that you would burn the iron powder, then re-generate the iron oxide waste with electrolysis preferably using renewable energy. So iron becomes an energy transport and storage mechanism instead of a single-use fuel. Seems like it would be more efficient to use the renewable energy directly or failing that, use the electrolysis to create hydrogen and burn that, but I guess that comes down to how efficient the regeneration process is and cost of transport. https://gizmodo.com/a-dutch-brewery-is-burning-iron-powder-as-a-recyclable-1845585963 https://gizmodo.com/a-dutch-brewery-is-burning-iron-powder-a...
- Pet_Ant 3y agoThat makes iron more of a battery than a fuel.
- hansvm 3y agoAs a rough distinction, I'd not call it a battery unless you can recharge it in-place, and the fact the a very hot reaction creates the energy further sways that opinion. There are companies making gasoline from atmospheric CO2 too. Does that make gas a battery?
- vikramkr 3y agoWouldn't be surprised if the word "battery" genericized over the next few years to mean any form of energy storage, especially given the growth in the relevance of geod scale storage. I've already seen a couple of folks refer to pumped storage as massive batteries and if those count, then yeah do does your gasoline generator
- lazide 3y agoCalling a gas generator a battery is about as perverse as ‘literally’ meaning not literally. :s
- exmadscientist 3y agoThe word "battery" has already drifted a lot more over the last ~500 years than the word "literally"!
- lazide 3y agoAnd yet the vast majority of batteries in use are primary cells which aren’t rechargeable at all without recycling?
- hansvm 3y agoNeat, that's a fair point.
- klyrs 3y agoI can see long-term energy storage based on iron. Burn it in winter, melt it in summer when solar is plentiful. Less attractive, but almost inevitable: burn it in Northern Canada, melt it in Australia.
- PaulHoule 3y agoFinely divided metals burn in a way that they don't do in bulk. See this experiment: https://frugalfun4boys.com/burn-steel-wool-science/ https://frugalfun4boys.com/burn-steel-wool-science/ I think that metal pan is aluminum which melts at a lower temperature than iron and has even more affinity for oxygen, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite I think you'd have no trouble holding burning iron wool with an iron pair of tongs for instance.