August 10, 2004

Making Steel with Beach Sand Popular Science

Posted by tourdemars to Technology at August 10, 2004 11:35 PM

Thermite powder yields pure, white-hot iron when lit. Don't try this one at home.
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Comments

Instead, try this on Mars!

Posted by: tourdemars at August 10, 2004 11:43 PM

Interesting.

Iron shortage will not be an issue if you bring some aluminium powder...

Is there aluminium on Mars by the way? Can the powder be created there too?

Posted by: Bjørn Danielsen at August 11, 2004 04:10 AM

Can't what are the advantages of this. This way of making iron is rather clumsy and wasting the precious Al. You can nearly exclude the possibility of bare Al on Mars. If there is, you can be sure there will also be Fe in bigger proportions. No need for this process.
Cheaper reductants for creating Iron are carbon or hydrogen. But some process involving electrolysis will be the best choice, I think.

Posted by: bolbuyk at August 12, 2004 05:47 AM