Posted on 04/09/2025 8:07:39 PM PDT by Red Badger
A low-temperature electrochemical method for producing iron could reshape the steel industry.
A blazing snapshot of traditional ironmaking, one of the world’s most polluting industries. sdlgzps/iStock
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Steel is the backbone of modern civilization—used in everything from buildings and bridges to cars and appliances.
On the other hand, steelmaking is one of the world’s largest sources of carbon emissions, primarily due to the traditional process of extracting iron from ore using coal-fired blast furnaces.
As the global demand for steel continues to grow, finding cleaner, more sustainable methods of production is critical—not just for climate goals, but for the future of industry itself.
Now, researchers are turning to electrochemistry to reimagine how we make iron, the key ingredient in steel.
Instead of relying on high-temperature, fossil-fueled furnaces, this emerging method uses electricity to extract pure iron from iron oxide at much lower temperatures and with significantly fewer emissions.
It’s a promising step toward a greener steel industry—one that could help cut pollution without sacrificing performance or profitability.
Rethinking iron ore for industrial scale
At the University of Oregon, chemist Paul Kempler and his team are developing an electrochemical process that transforms iron oxide and saltwater into pure iron metal—while also producing chlorine, a commercially valuable byproduct.
This method could slash the environmental impact of traditional ironmaking and eventually compete on cost with today’s carbon-heavy approaches.
Last year, the team showed that electrochemistry could successfully convert iron oxide into iron in the lab.
But real-world iron ores are far more complex than the purified materials used in earlier tests.
To bring their process closer to industrial reality, the researchers needed to figure out which types of naturally occurring iron oxides would work best in these low-temperature reactions.
“We actually have a chemical principle, a sort of guiding design rule, that will teach us how to identify low-cost iron oxides that we could use in these reactors,” Kempler said.
Shape over size!
To answer that question, postdoctoral researcher Ana Konovalova and graduate student Andrew Goldman investigated how the shape and structure of iron oxide particles affect the process.
They created porous and dense particles with similar compositions but different internal architecture.
Their findings were clear: porosity matters. Porous particles, which have more internal surface area, allowed iron to be produced faster and more efficiently.
Dense particles, by contrast, slowed the process down and limited how much iron could be made at once.
“With the really porous particles, we can make iron really quickly on a small area,” Goldman said. “The dense particles just can’t achieve the same rate, so we’re limited in how much iron we can make per square meter of electrodes.”
Metal oxide particles that matter for efficiency in electrochemical ironmaking. – ACS Energy Letters 2025
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A big leap forward
Efficiency is more than a scientific win—it’s a business necessity. Large-scale electrochemical plants are expensive, and the faster a system can produce iron, the sooner it pays for itself.
Using porous particles, the team estimated they could produce iron for under $600 per metric ton, which is in the same ballpark as conventional ironmaking.
Further advances in electrode design and porous feedstock materials could push the process even further.
To accelerate the path from lab to industry, the team is collaborating with civil engineers at Oregon State University and an electrode manufacturing company.
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“I think what this work shows is that technology can meet the needs of an industrial society without being environmentally devastating,” Goldman said.
“We haven’t solved all the problems yet, of course, but I think it’s an example that serves as a nucleation point for a different way of thinking about what solutions look like.”
The study is published in ACS Energy Letters.
bkmk
True, but iron has too much carbon in it. The carbon precipitates as flakes of carbon when the iron solidifies. These weaken the iron and make it brittle. This excess carbon is removed in order to make much stronger and more ductile (bendable) steel.
I’ve burned a tire or two to keep the skeeters away while fishin’ in the crick....
It depends solely on application and the science of annealing and/or tempering. Example would be you can take all the brittleness out of high carbon steel by annealing it. Application and “fatigue” are the main factors in choosing the proper alloy for the job soft or hard.
There really is an exact science of these combinations depending on application. Take Rails for example. If Rails were too soft they would only last a week of heavy Train traffic. They would just mush out. Yet at the same time how they react to temperature expansion and contraction can even be a huge factor.
I watched the local line put 50 miles of new rail in one time only to pull it all back out and replace it again. The metallurgy was not correct so when summer came it expanded far too much and was buckling the rails causing the spikes to pull and derailments.
You could literally look down what was supposed to be a straight shot and it was wavy by four or five feet every few hundred yards. Looked like a snake...
The “Temperature” of a continuous railroad track is an important factor in whether or not the track will buckle in compression, or even fracture in tension. It is defined as the track temperature at which there is zero thermal (tensile or compressive) stress in the rails due to ambient temperatures. It is strongly influenced by the ambient temperature when it is laid. The stresses change with the number and degrees of curvature in the track as well as ambient temperature in service. Here’s a good explanation: https://www.railtemperature.com/Research/Ensco_Temperature_prediction.pdf
That is why they usually strap two sharks together like they did for the P-38.
Cast iron has a much higher carbon content than steel.
You are correct sir. Cole is not just for heat, it is the carbon source, as you said.
The Devil is in the details. The electricity has to be generated as cleanly as the iron is smelted. That means hydroelectric or nuclear. One is not widely available; the other is opposed by too many morons.
Plus iron is not steel.
The iron still has to be melted at a very high temp to add the other metals to form an alloy.............
Yep, Question to the writers should have asked: Where does the electricity come from?
Was the inventor named Hank Rearden?
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