Iron Powder Passes First Industrial Test As Renewable, Carbon Dioxide-Free Fuel (ieee.org) 103
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: While setting fire to an iron ingot is probably more trouble than it's worth, fine iron powder mixed with air is highly combustible. When you burn this mixture, you're oxidizing the iron. Whereas a carbon fuel oxidizes into CO2, an iron fuel oxidizes into Fe2O3, which is just rust. The nice thing about rust is that it's a solid which can be captured post-combustion. And that's the only byproduct of the entire business -- in goes the iron powder, and out comes energy in the form of heat and rust powder. Iron has an energy density of about 11.3 kWh/L, which is better than gasoline. Although its specific energy is a relatively poor 1.4 kWh/kg, meaning that for a given amount of energy, iron powder will take up a little bit less space than gasoline but it'll be almost ten times heavier. It might not be suitable for powering your car, in other words. It probably won't heat your house either. But it could be ideal for industry, which is where it's being tested right now.
Researchers from TU Eindhoven have been developing iron powder as a practical fuel for the past several years, and last month they installed an iron powder heating system at a brewery in the Netherlands, which is turning all that stored up energy into beer. Since electricity can't efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included), iron powder is a viable zero-carbon option, with only rust left over. So what happens to all that rust? This is where things get clever, because the iron isn't just a fuel that's consumed -- it's energy storage that can be recharged. And to recharge it, you take all that Fe2O3, strip out the oxygen, and turn it back into Fe, ready to be burned again. It's not easy to do this, but much of the energy and work that it takes to pry those Os away from the Fes get returned to you when you burn the Fe the next time. The idea is that you can use the same iron over and over again, discharging it and recharging it just like you would a battery.
To maintain the zero-carbon nature of the iron fuel, the recharging process has to be zero-carbon as well. There are a variety of different ways of using electricity to turn rust back into iron, and the TU/e researchers are exploring three different technologies based on hot hydrogen reduction (which turns iron oxide and hydrogen into iron and water). [...] Both production of the hydrogen and the heat necessary to run the furnace or the reactors require energy, of course, but it's grid energy that can come from renewable sources. [...] Philip de Goey, a professor of combustion technology at TU/e, told us that he hopes to be able to deploy 10 MW iron powder high-temperature heat systems for industry within the next four years, with 10 years to the first coal power plant conversion.
Researchers from TU Eindhoven have been developing iron powder as a practical fuel for the past several years, and last month they installed an iron powder heating system at a brewery in the Netherlands, which is turning all that stored up energy into beer. Since electricity can't efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included), iron powder is a viable zero-carbon option, with only rust left over. So what happens to all that rust? This is where things get clever, because the iron isn't just a fuel that's consumed -- it's energy storage that can be recharged. And to recharge it, you take all that Fe2O3, strip out the oxygen, and turn it back into Fe, ready to be burned again. It's not easy to do this, but much of the energy and work that it takes to pry those Os away from the Fes get returned to you when you burn the Fe the next time. The idea is that you can use the same iron over and over again, discharging it and recharging it just like you would a battery.
To maintain the zero-carbon nature of the iron fuel, the recharging process has to be zero-carbon as well. There are a variety of different ways of using electricity to turn rust back into iron, and the TU/e researchers are exploring three different technologies based on hot hydrogen reduction (which turns iron oxide and hydrogen into iron and water). [...] Both production of the hydrogen and the heat necessary to run the furnace or the reactors require energy, of course, but it's grid energy that can come from renewable sources. [...] Philip de Goey, a professor of combustion technology at TU/e, told us that he hopes to be able to deploy 10 MW iron powder high-temperature heat systems for industry within the next four years, with 10 years to the first coal power plant conversion.
Wow iron can burn? (Score:5, Insightful)
That really needed confirmation?
Burning iron is easy, electrolytically reducing iron oxide efficiently is hard. If you first have to split water I doubt you could get even 25% round trip efficiency.
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The novel part is that they are testing carbon neutral ways to turn the rust back into iron.
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The novel part is that they are testing carbon neutral ways to turn the rust back into iron.
No they aren't. They are using grid power. SOME of the grid power is from renewable sources.
They are using electricity to turn rust into iron.
They are then creating electricity by turning the iron back into rust.
So the next result is an extremely inefficient battery.
They are then using this inefficient battery to heat a brewery, an application where neither using electricity nor using a battery make any sense.
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yes they are, its in the article. to quote from the article "To maintain the zero-carbon nature of the iron fuel, the recharging process has to be zero-carbon as well. There are a variety of different ways of using electricity to turn rust back into iron"
- "They are then using this inefficient battery to heat a brewery, an application where neither using electricity nor using a battery make any sense."
its for the brewing process. to quote from the article again " they installed an
Re: Wow iron can burn? (Score:1)
Re: Wow iron can burn? (Score:2)
They do already, its called cathodic protection.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] protection (CP) is a,to act as the anode.
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- "No they aren't. "
yes they are
No they aren't.
its in the article. to quote from the article ...
Your own quote says they aren't. They are using grid power. But as the grid power shifts to renewables, they will be using renewable power.
So to summarize:
1. Using iron to store energy is stupid and wasteful.
2. In the future it will slightly less stupid because the energy being wasted will be renewable.
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"Using iron to store energy is stupid and wasteful." - how is it wasteful? its reusable and burns at a heat required for brewing. Maybe not the most efficient in percentage terms but its does t
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ShangaiBill is a fossil fuel shill. (Score:2)
No need to engage him. Everybody already has him in their foes list.
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However breweries do use electricity for heating.
There are various steps in the brewing process where heat is required and in our modern age that is mostly done with electric heaters.
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Apparently you don't quite grasp the concept of energy density.
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However breweries do use electricity for heating.
They why not just use the grid electricity for heating, rather than using the grid electricity to (inefficiently) make iron and then use the iron to (inefficiently) make electricity?
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>> Since electricity can't efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications
Once again, right ITFS, the iron burning is a more efficient way of obtaining the needed high temperatures.
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Which is bullshit. Turning electricity into heat is 100% efficient. Well assuming you are using none inductively wound coils, but they worked that out a *long* time ago.
You can on an industrial scale melt say 400 tonnes of steel at once using an electric arc furnace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Or you could also use an induction furnace, which is again done on an industrial scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
However this is a fricking brewery. The most heat they can possibly need is no more than yo
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Most breweries use either oil or gas for firing the boilers to generate steam to heat the kettle. Either most breweries are run by complete morons who don't realize how much cheaper using electric would be, or there is something you haven't thought of. Gee, I wonder which it could be.
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Yes, I've read that other comment where they claim that electricity is inefficient at producing those temperatures.
That made me immediately question what the hell they do in Dutch breweries that requires high temperatures. Do they need to melt aluminum for making their own cans on site?
Electricity does fine enough there, by the way.
The breweries I've visited and seen from the inside didn't need higher temperatures than 100C in the process. Malting h
Re:Wow iron can burn? (Score:4, Insightful)
A brewery is not a coffee maker. You are not 'boiling water', you are boiling wort. Unlike coffee, all the ingredients are already in the wort when it is boiled. For this reason, direct heating (no matter how done) is avoided as it can lead to hot spots and burning or caramelization of the sugars. Instead, breweries use steam jackets around the brew kettle to provide the heat for boiling the wort. And generating that steam requires temperatures considerably higher than 100C.
The nature of brewing is such that a large amount of energy is consumed in a relatively short amount of time, infrequently. While you can produce the steam with electricity, that requires an electric system that can handle a large amount of power, even though most of the time very little power is being used. That is expensive, hence not efficient. For this reason, most of the steam boilers are fired using oil or gas.
This system is replacing the gas or oil firing with the iron powder. This has the advantage of no CO2, and the powder can be 'recharged' during all of the time steam is not required using a much smaller (cheaper) electric system. And that recharging can be done off-peak, another advantage,
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But it's true that brewing at higher temperatures drastically reduces the time that is required.
Heating the brew to ~150C via shell and tube heat exchanger or plate heat exchanger powered by ~1500C ignition temperature iron dust could make sense. There's certainly some merit to high temperatures.
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Requiring a lot of electricity in a short period of time is needing lots a large supply not being efficient is wrong use of the word efficient especially in this context. Efficiency is about the what percentage of the electrical power supplied ends up as heat, which is basically 100% because it it does not end up as heat it's still available to use. For once the laws of thermodynamics are on our side.
What they are saying is that using electrical heat directly is not cost effective. Perhaps it is a lot cheap
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One of the previous articles on this answered that question:
This is an experiment being performed by a university team.
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Put your reading glasses on old man.
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Cool, but does that processus also work on old cars?
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The issue with metal powder as fu
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Guess it depends on aluminum supplies (Score:2)
Re:Stupidity (Score:4, Informative)
Someone check my math, but I think a Kg of gasoline is more than 12.5 kWh/kg.
Maybe for places that really need a fire, this makes sense. Maybe the temp iron burns at makes this useful. But if the idea is to ship iron as a battery to a location, expend it, and then ship it back for recharge, yes, this is absurd.
It MIGHT makes sense in stationary systems -- let's say a solar farm that wants constant energy output, even overnight. But even then, you need to move this stuff around to get the power. It seems smarter to pump water uphill. Cheaper, too.
Yes, we have a lot of iron on earth. But this use doesn't seem to make sense.
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Sorry, I see they're basically aiming at heat, not general-purpose electrons, so the power-station model is not relevant.
Still seems silly.
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You can measure by mass like you did, or measure by volume, where a litre of iron powder has more energy then a litre of gasoline. So you're math is probably right but incomplete.
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Apparently they're thinking about rapid bursts of intense heat. Coils tend to burn out when used that way. It seems quite reasonable (if they can get the regenerative technique working well) for a small niche purpose. So a bunch of "if"s there, and "niche" can be pretty small....I don't know how small it would be. I don't really think brewing is a feasible part of the niche, though.
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I don't think the coils are the main problem, but the transmission wires, transformers and the electricity source that would have issues with such bursts of load.
Where does iron powder come from? (Score:3)
I read the article and it doesnâ(TM)t say. I assume energy is involved in creating enough iron powder to be useful. That seems to be an important piece of the equation theyâ(TM)re leaving out.
Unless tons of iron powder is a byproduct of something and weâ(TM)ve had it just lying around for years waiting for a use?
Re: Where does iron powder come from? (Score:2)
That's a good question. I suspect their answer is that recharging the iron means that the energy produced by the iron over and over and over (after recharge) will end up being vastly greater than whatever energy it took to make the powder in the first place.
I guess I'm wondering what advantages this has over other methods like batteries, or just taking electricity from renewable sources. If they're using renewables to recharges the iron, why not use that energy in the first place? Storage ability?
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TFS indicated that by burning iron you can reach higher temperatures than by heating with electricity alone. Seems odd to me, since aluminum foundries use electricity,
Aluminum melts at 1220*F, and Aluminum alloys at 865-1240*F. Iron melts at 2060-2900*F. Presumably it's even hotter when it burns.
Re:Where does iron powder come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
The iron powder comes from iron oxides, which in turn came from iron powder, which in turn came from iron oxides... all the way back to some point in the past where you originally obtained the iron powder by grinding some iron bar stock.
Iron is not being used as an energy source here. It's a component in what, in effect, is a specialized battery. You take energy out as heat by oxidizing iron powder; you put energy in as electricity, which converts the oxides back to iron powder. Calling iron powder "fuel" is perhaps technically correct for the energy extraction phase of the process, but it's misleading. Normally we think of fuel as a single-use energy source; you take the energy out and throw whatever is left over away.
The summary is confusing when it says electricity can't efficiently produce "the kind of heat" needed for certain industrial processes. The problem this clearly solves is delivering high levels of *power* for a short time. Instead of sizing your electric service for the peak power needed, you size it for the average power needed and store energy on site until you need it.
When I was a student I worked at a plasma fusion experiment that did this. The experiment drew higher peak currents than the grid could supply, on the order of hundreds of megawatts, but for just a few seconds. They had a generator the size of a small house attached to a massive flywheel. They'd spend ten or twenty minutes drawing current off the grid to spin up the flywheel, then use the flywheel to power the generator for about ten seconds.
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I read the article and it doesnâ(TM)t say. I assume energy is involved in creating enough iron powder to be useful. That seems to be an important piece of the equation theyâ(TM)re leaving out.
Jarjar, you missed the part where we already have lots of iron, it is plentiful on this planet.
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The question wasn't "where does iron come from." I specifically wondered where iron powder comes from... I was assuming it takes energy to get iron into powder form, since it doesn't really start out that way. And the article left out that part of the equation, so I asked. Thanks though.
Again? (Score:4, Informative)
I realize a week is a long time to remember a story, but msmash already got this [slashdot.org].
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some of us have filtered out msmash due to an overabundance of SJW nonsense
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SJW
Shouldn't you be at the Deplorable Supermanspreader COVFEFE-19 festival in Washington?
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It's hilarious when you try to act as if SJWs are the cool kids now. :)
Cause you're so alone we can almost hear the echo of that large empty room.
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Ahh the wonders of solid fuels (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahh the wonders of solid fuels (Score:4, Funny)
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“NO, no, no, it’s not what you think. I’m not cutting street drugs, I’m making a flamethrower!”
You sir, are a gentleman of quality. :)
Ahh, the joys of a normal childhood (Score:2)
When I was a kid, you did all kinds of stuff like this and nobody really cared. Hell, you could even buy real salt peter. Chemistry sets had all kinds of interesting stuff. Nowadays, all you get to play around with is friggin' earth science... boorrring.
And it's ideal for wasting energy (Score:3, Informative)
With an efficiency of 40%, almost any other energy storage method is better than this
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There must be billions of VPs that can waste more than that with an IPO!
Re: And it's ideal for wasting energy (Score:3)
What is we just cut out the middlemen and burn the VP directly?
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The story says nothing about the efficiency, and the only place it uses the word is when it says, "Since electricity can’t efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included), iron powder is a viable zero-carbon option, with only rust left over."
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The 40% rating comes from a different story on the same subject
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But you didn't understand the information. Perhaps that's why you floated the number without trying to talk about why it is relevant. It isn't.
When engineers invent shit that increases efficiency, it doesn't mean they decreased efficiency. It means you don't understand WTF they're talking about.
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Go troll somewhere else. "Using this kind of cyclical process to generate electricity could approach a theoretical efficiency around 40 percent" https://newatlas.com/energy/ba... [newatlas.com]
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Cause we have sooo little energy ... Only 300 Yottawats in that fusion reactor in the sky! How will we ever cope?!
How long are you gonna post that stupid energy efficiency meme they told you to believe in, to keep blaming you instead of the fossil fuel industry?
electric heating not efficient??!!! (Score:1)
Electrical resistance heating is 100% efficient, can't be beat.
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False. The application efficiency is 100% when the heater is contained in the space to be heated. But for example, ever notice that a burner on the stove turns red when it gets hots? That is energy being wasted generating photons that you didn't collect or use.
Plus, there is generally a desire in these processes to be able to control the heat. The control elements will not be perfectly efficient.
Also, from the story:
Since electricity can’t efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included), iron powder is a viable zero-carbon option, with only rust left over.
This is higher efficiency that if you attempted electrical resistance heating. You can cli
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Industrial processes don't heat things on a stove. Controlling resistive heat sources is a long solved problem. Heating in insulated space is a long solved problem. Brewing with resistive heat source is a long solved problem and plenty of breweries do it.
You just spew in ignorance, best leave engineering to we engineers.
So this is what happened to Mars? (Score:2)
I did not realize the Barsoom had this same problem as us!
silver bullets (Score:1)
To the tune of Oh my darling, Clementine:
Silver bullets,
silver bullets,
silver bullets one and all.
You are such a polyanna,
you are heading for a fall.
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And yet, sometimes a great solution exists!
But hey, go on clinging to your gas guzzling SUV like a true voter.
So, its a battery (Score:2)
How is it better than other batteries? The efficiency doesn't sound great.
If you use fossil fuels to reduce the iron oxide back to iron, it might be more efficient as a heat battery than conventional, but still less efficient than just heating iwth the fossil fuels directly.
So what is the use case where its better than conventional technology?
Re:So, its a battery (Score:4, Informative)
The efficiency doesn't sound great.
The efficiency is not discussed in the story, other than to point out that it is potentially more efficient than electrical heating for the intended applications.
So what is the use case where its better than conventional technology?
Industrial processes with temperatures above those of an electric kiln.
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Sorry didn't finish. Electric arc heaters get pretty hot. Is there an application for higher temperatures? Arc furnaces are used to melt Tungsten
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Turning electricity into heat is by definition 100% efficient. Well assuming you are using say a none inductively wound resistive coil.
Generating the electricity will not be 100% efficient but there are better energy stores than iron oxide.
A pretty experiment with zero practical uses as industry will routinely melt hundreds of tones of steel, aluminium, copper etc. using nothing but electricity.
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IF you use fossil fuel. Hint NOBODY would use fossil fuel! Because THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!
Are you like a fossil fuel industry Obelix? Fell into the Kool-Aid pot as a child? ;)
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Yes. but then are you using electricity? If so it seems considerably less efficient than conventional batteries. In most fixed applications you can just use electric heat directly (which is 100% efficient of course, or electrically driven heat pumps which are expensive but effectively >100% efficient because you can throw away the cold side to the atmosphere).
(heat pumps are the one place where Carnot is on your side - you can generate > 1W of heat for every W expended in running a heat pump. Its
"like a battery" (Score:2)
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The advantage is that you can dump it out and refill easily and quickly.
Of course if car makers weren't greedy assholes, you'd swap your car battery in seconds at any gas station. Just drive on top of a platform, swipe your credit card, and it swaps it with one from the battery storage underground. Guaranteed to be fresh and good for n miles on a full charge. Even after 20 years of driving. Maybe even a newer kind of battery.
Battery not Fuel (Score:2)
This is obviously a kind of battery, not fuel. Yes, you can pour it into a tank and pour it out of the 'used' tank, but it is still a battery system.
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So my gasoline tank is a "battery" now too?
Hint: Both are burned with oxygen.
Blablabla (Score:2)
Since electricity can't efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included)
[Citation needed]
(Hint: it's utter nonsense)
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The example they are using is a brewery. That means that a few times a week (if that) you need to bring a fairly large quantity of cold water to a boil for an hour or so. Certainly you could do that with electric, probably even efficiently, but it requires a large amount of electricity. So you get to put in a large, expensive, electrical system and then not use it most of the time. That is not efficient.
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No that is "not cost effective" not not efficient. In this context efficient has a very specific meaning.
I very much doubt that a plant to turn iron oxide back to iron powder (which needs to be developed so lots of $$$$ there) is cheaper than a large battery pack. Especially given the hideous efficiency of the system compared to a battery pack which is an off the shelf available today system. So the battery and electrical heating system is available today, has no development costs and/or time is more energy
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"Citation needed" he says... right below a citation that says that. :))
It's like you Wikipedia people don't even realize how ridiculous your logical fallacy is... Even though you literally have articles on it on Wikipedia!
trade offs (Score:2)
Assuming that we could build some kind of efficient iron burning engine, which seems like a big assumption, can we capture the rust exhaust in a way that prevents air pollution from fine particles? Sounds like trading one kind of air pollution for another. Breathing rust cannot be good for your lungs/body.
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A steam motor would work. Watching one of jay Leno's steam cars, they're almost as good as electric, besides the maintenance. A couple of minutes warming up before it moves in low gear, a bit longer and you no longer need the low gear and with a thousand foot lbs of torque and almost silent operation, they work pretty well. Just need the right furnace to burn the iron in.
Of course electric would generally be better, but in the middle of nowhere, perhaps the arctic, it would be easier to ship in iron powder
Just find ways to deal with nuclear waste (Score:2)
Baby steps!
Meanwhile we continue to wo
OMG sailboat! (Score:2)
OMG I need this for my sailboat!
NO and NO2? (Score:1)
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Then don't use air.
Hand warmers (Score:3)
Those hand warmers that fit into your mittens use the same principle, turning iron into rust, with additional ingredients to slow down the reaction so it will last ~10 hrs. I use them all the time in the winter because I have Reynaud syndrome and as a result am susceptible to chilblains (bad blisters that last for weeks).
Occasionally the packs don't work, maybe because the packaging developed a leak or something. It turns out that a magnet will attract the good ones (with iron) but not the bad ones (with rust). Fortunately bad ones are rare; I think I've seen only a couple over several years that were not past the expiry date. But a magnet lets you avoid an unpleasant surprise outdoors, as well as letting you know if ones that have expired are still good.
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Sources of hydrogen (Score:2)
Almost all hydrogen is made by reducing hydrocarbons. Oil+magic+air= H2+CO2
So using hydrogen to reduce the rust back to iron still releases CO2 into the atmosphere, and introduces several sources of energy inefficiency at the same time.
Unicorns.
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Why do people ALWAYS bring that stupid argument?
I KNOW that you fully well KNOW that anyone with an idea like in TFA, would OBVIOUSLY use a better process to get their CO2. DU-FREAKIN-UH!
I bet you've been arguing that electric cars are bad because renewable electricity generation was barely done on behalf of the oil industry for decades too... --.--
Since when can CO2 not be captured? (Score:2)
Put a tank on that exhaust, compress it, done!
Sure, if it has water, you extract that, and if it has air, you use a chemical that binds the CO2, but it has been done for a loong time.
It's just more complicated that rust. But not impossible at all!
What's the benefit? (Score:2)
If the "recharging" is done with electricity, what's the point of the whole effort? Why not just use that same electricity directly to power the industrial process, without needing to mess with iron and rust dust which sounds like an incredibly messy and costly endeavor?
If the purpose is to make it act as a power buffer, ie. currently unneeded renewable energy is channeled into turning rust into iron, it might be OK but then why isn't this mentioned in TFS?
One small weakness (Score:2)
Needs air but must be watertight. Or else, boom!
Someone will STILL complain about this (Score:2)
Some people will still whine and moan about the fact that the raw material has to be mined. Honestly, such people should be forced to homestead for several years so they can understand what the unintended consequences of their ideology are.
Metal as Fuel (Score:1)