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One of the reasons why mining the remains of ancient cities could prove to be impossible, is that a lot of the metal would get oxidized (aka rust)
by mariusz79 12y ago
One of the reasons why mining the remains of ancient cities could prove to be impossible, is that a lot of the metal would get oxidized (aka rust)
- yellowapple 12y agoIn the case of rust, there are a lot of chemical similarities between it and hematite (though contamination with iron hydroxides might be a problem), which might (theoretically at least) make it potentially suitable for smelting into pig iron. I don't think any existing industrial processes do this, though.
- ars 12y agoIt's not a problem to remove rust from iron. Just heat it in a low oxygen atmosphere, and add carbon which will react with the oxygen in the iron. You do need to carefully control the amount of carbon though.