MIT Discovers a cleaner, more efficient, smelting process

[HalGameGuru]

Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/24/mit-accidentally-discovered-a-cleaner-smelting-process/

MIT: http://news.mit.edu/2016/new-method-producing-some-metals-0824

 

So MIT has apparently discovered a new smelting process. A process that is both more efficient and cleaner than current industry standard processes.

 

Quote

“We were trying to develop a different electrochemistry for a battery,” Sadoway explains, as an extension of the variety of chemical formulations for the all-liquid, high temperature storage batteries that his lab has been developing for several years. The different parts of these batteries are composed of molten metals or salts that have different densities and thus inherently form separate layers, much as oil floats on top of water. “We wanted to investigate the utility of putting a second electrolyte between the positive and negative electrodes” of the liquid battery, Sadoway says.

When working on new and interesting battery concoctions they found one that did not act as they thought it should, it wouldn't hold a charge...

 

Quote

But the experiment didn’t go quite as planned. “We found that when we went to charge this putative battery, we were in fact producing liquid antimony instead of charging the battery,” Sadoway says.

Then, the quest was on to figure out what had just happened

when they investigated they found out the process was electrolysing, separating Antimony from the cocktail at a 99.9% purity with a fraction of the power needed compared to traditional methods and releasing minuscule amounts of pollutants.

Quote

“The thing that made this such an exciting finding,” Sadoway says, “is that we could imagine doing the same for copper and nickel, metals that are used in large quantities.” It made sense to start with antimony because it has a much lower melting point — just 631 degrees Celsius — compared to copper’s 1,085 C. Though the higher melting temperatures of other metals add complication to designing an overall production system, the underlying physical principles are the same, and so such systems should eventually be feasible, he says.

“Antimony was a good test vehicle for the idea, but we could imagine doing something similar for much more common metals,” Sadoway says. And while this demonstration used an ore that is a sulfide (metal combined with sulfur), “we see no reason why this approach couldn’t be generalized to oxide feedstocks,” which represent the other major category of metal ores. Such a process would produce pure oxygen as the secondary product, instead of sulfur

I am really looking forward to this being developed. Nickel especially is downright diabolical in its environmental impact, just for automotive batteries and electronics. But if it could also be used for Copper or other common industrial metals? And this process looks like it could be nigh infinitely scalable. From tiny home industry all the way up to mega mines and super-factories, it could revolutionize separation and smelting for huge swaths of the market.

 

This could change the game for battery tech, and greatly reduce the cost of a lot of the more mundane metallic components that go into our electronics.

[Glenwing]

Man, and I thought you just stick two lumps of coal and one lump of iron in a furnace...

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

... Saw this coming. We've had electroplating for years now and we haven't bothered to step it up until now, which is still based on the same process

[ManIkWeet]

6 hours ago, Glenwing said:

Man, and I thought you just stick two lumps of coal and one lump of iron in a furnace...

Surely this is RuneScape?

[Curufinwe_wins]

On 8/25/2016 at 6:19 AM, ManIkWeet said:

Surely this is RuneScape?

Aww the days... so much smelting...

[Energycore]

10 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Aww the days... so much smelting...

So runescape is the one that invented the crafting grind. Finally I know the father to all our frustrations

[Curufinwe_wins]

6 minutes ago, Energycore said:

So runescape is the one that invented the crafting grind. Finally I know the father to all our frustrations

No one knows grinding unless they played runescape in the good olde days.

[shdowhunt60]

Maybe finally I won't lose all my irons at the forge now.

[ManIkWeet]

12 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

No one knows grinding unless they played runescape in the good olde days.

You can relive that experience, they have released an "Oldschool" version, based on 2007 source code and updated with some new content

 

Here, if you're interested...

[Curufinwe_wins]

3 hours ago, ManIkWeet said:

You can relive that experience, they have released an "Oldschool" version, based on 2007 source code and updated with some new content

 

Here, if you're interested...

I know, I was playing even past the eoc update. I hit 15 99s before quitting.

 

I have no interest at all in redoing it  (primarily due to quests... I did the quest cape and I can't stand redoing some of those early awful quests for the 3rd or 4th time).

[ManIkWeet]

4 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

I know, I was playing even past the eoc update. I hit 15 99s before quitting.

 

I have no interest at all in redoing it  (primarily due to quests... I did the quest cape and I can't stand redoing some of those early awful quests for the 3rd or 4th time).

Fair enough