World first: Dutch brewery burns iron as a clean, recyclable fuel

New Atlas ^ | 4 Nov 2020 | Loz Blain

[DUMBGRUNT]

Many industries use heat-intensive processes that generally require the burning of fossil fuels, but a surprising green fuel alternative is emerging in the form of metal powders. Ground very fine, cheap iron powder burns readily at high temperatures, releasing energy as it oxidises in a process that emits no carbon and produces easily collectable rust, or iron oxide, as its only emission.

If burning metal powder as fuel sounds strange, the next part of the process will be even more surprising. That rust can be regenerated straight back into iron powder with the application of electricity, and if you do this using solar, wind or other zero-carbon power generation systems, you end up with a totally carbon-free cycle. The iron acts as a kind of clean battery for combustion processes, charging up via one of a number of means including electrolysis, and discharging in flames and heat.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Everyone knows that a scaled-up drinking bird is superior to that energy hog.

And as soon as they come up with low drag vacuum seals, the large scale radiometer should easily outproduce solar cells.

[usurper]

(pump water to the top of a dam during high production times to let it flow down through turbines during high use times),

Sounds like you would end up with a huge net loss of energy doing that. The energy used to pump the water up would far exceed the energy you would recover from the down flow through a turban.

It just doesn't add up to me.

[reg45]

The binding resin in fiberglass contains lots of carbon.

[Pontiac]

Of course, the devil is in the details...

Such as; buying and operating a iron fired boiler and turbine-generator. I doubt that anyone makes one. And of course you need an industrial water treatment system for your feed water. And you will need a High Pressure Boiler Operator’s license to run your system.

Of course you also need the equipment to reduce your iron oxide back in to iron.

You probably also need a mill system that operates in a vacuum to turn your iron back in to a powder. It is very likely to clump up during the regeneration process.

Yes, the devil is in the details.

This entire idea is a solution looking for a problem.

CO2 is not a pollutant.

[Grimmy]

How much energy does it take to grind that iron to powder?

[calenel]

Different kind of “burning”. And iron is the “waste product” of chromium + helium fusion.

[calenel]

No, they are counting wind and solar as “free” carbon-neutral energy sources for the reverse reaction, but neither is remotely so. It’s just all front-end loaded.

[Bob434]

jeepers- what’s made of lithium in car parts? That’s quite a fire

[Bob434]

[[Who needed a Second Law, anyway?]]

Runner ups

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"It just doesn't add up to me."

They are called "pumped storage facilities" and there are many of these around the world. See this Wiki List of Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power Stations" for those 1,000 MW and larger.

They are used to store cheap power generated at night when demand is low and deliver it to the market during the day when demand is high. They've been used for decades and are quite cheap. An alternative is Compressed Air Energy Storage where you pump high pressure air into old salt mine caverns, but these didn't catch on much.

[Bob434]

watched a boat burn once- wow- the smoke was unreal-

[KarlInOhio]

Sounds like you would end up with a huge net loss of energy doing that. The energy used to pump the water up would far exceed the energy you would recover from the down flow through a turban.

Like I said, I want to see the efficiency. Some times and industrial user could get the energy practically for free, like with nuclear reactors or coal plants which have to be kept running even if the energy isn't being used like the middle of the night. The electric company is glad to get any money for it rather than just pumping out waste heat without spinning a turbine.

One example of this is air conditioning systems which produce ice (or a salt water slush) at night and use that for cooling during the day. It can be cheaper to do that than to pay prime rates at 3pm to keep your building cool.

If you could run a solar farm at a net cost of 1 cent per kilowatt-hour, you could afford some inefficiencies to get power from it and some batteries 24 hours per day.

[beef]

“Rosie O’Donnell is skeptical.”

You mean the renowned metallurgist who explained to us why 9/11 was an inside job? I remember that.

[Secret Agent Man]

co2 is plant food

[Outlaw76]

Iron burning in stars is how you get Novas and Supernovas. Iron is the death of stars.

[gundog]

And still no beer.

[Wildbill22]

“BUT,,,BUT,,,BUT,,, the Unicorn farts!!!!?!?!?!!! Nobody has ever tried them before and I just graduated from my community college with a masters in ancient Egyptian Lesbian studies and a second major in underwater basket weaving, so I am smart!!!!!”

SARCASM

I swear we should raise the voting age to 35 with 10 years of tax returns plus owning property to qualify.

[Wildbill22]

I live near the Ludington MI facility. At first they discovered it turned aquatic life, fish, into chum until they had to screen it all off.

There has to be a net loss in energy which can only be made up economically by the time of the day that it is used/stored. It is not an answer or a major source of energy. More like a science experiment.

[DUMBGRUNT]

More devilish details here:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/iron-powder-as-a-fuel/

All that high pressure/temperature equipment is expensive. And the stationary engineers are costly.

Nice when needed for industrial applications.

But I just want to grind up an old Chevy to keep my house warm.

Perhaps a pulse combustion boiler with ~110F out?
Would match nicely with the radiant floor and panel emitters in my house.

OK, that stainless cyclone looked expensive!

But, my brother has a beater in his garage that could be had at zero cost!

Henry Bessmer invented a process for manufacture metal powder over a hundred years ago, can’t be that difficult!
A fantastic story in itself.
https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11187437/Sir_Henrys_Secret_Pot_of_Gold__Part_2.html

[DUMBGRUNT]

How much energy does it take to grind that iron to powder?

Not all that difficult and you only need to grind it once, the iron oxide falls out of the combustion chamber still in power form.

A fun story of early metal powder makers.
https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11187437/Sir_Henrys_Secret_Pot_of_Gold__Part_2.html