Talk:Aluminum Extractor
Should we reconsider the choice of aluminum over iron/steel? I am still not sure why there is a need for a relatively complicated machine that uses the highest grade of energy (electricity) when a simple rotary kiln using pyrolysis gases from waste biomass could produce metallic iron, to be turned into alloys with an induction furnace. Using a magnet, high-grade iron ore can be extracted from soil, sand and river beds. --Rasmus (talk) 08:33, 28 February 2016 (CET)
Can you please add your ideas as a wiki page? I don't think anyone is implying that Aluminum Extraction is the only way to go, that just happens to be something that was researched and documented so far on the wiki. If you can research and document other approaches I think it would be really great and helpful. --Lex Berezhny (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2016 (CET)
I actually made these pages years ago, just haven't really pushed for a discussion. Relevant pages are:
- http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Direct_Reduced_Iron (techology: rotary kiln)
- http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Metal_Refining - includes a section on carbothermal reduction which could be a very small-scale, low-tech alternative to the rotary kiln.
- related: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Heliostat - for solar carbothermal reduction
- http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Biochar/Iron_Co-Production_System - how to couple processes for 3-4 useful products (iron, biochar, heat, CO2)
--Rasmus (talk) 17:01, 28 February 2016 (CET)
Personally, I think scrap metal is pretty abundant, at least in the US. I think if there was a simple, safe and cheap way to convert the scrap into something useable it would be very appealing. Do you have any plans or have done any experiments to that end? The topics you covered in your wiki pages are interesting but they seem either very theoretical or the equipment is very expensive and complicated (not to suggest that the Aluminium Extractor is better). In any case, I definitely agree with you that this needs to be explored. I'm not a scientist but where I live we have a lot of scrap metal so if you came up with some working system I'd be willing to try it. --Lex Berezhny (talk) 17:27, 28 February 2016 (CET)
Scrap metal is fine, and there is certainly a lot of it. But where none exists, there is a need for iron oxide reduction.
My suggestions:
- Scrap steel rusted => rotary kiln for DRI (treat like high-grade iron ore)
- Scrap steel unrusted => induction furnace or solar furnace
--Rasmus (talk) 17:37, 28 February 2016 (CET)
Great, can you write up instructions on how to build this stuff using basic tools and easy to source parts? So that it fits into the general OSE workflow. --Lex Berezhny (talk) 17:41, 28 February 2016 (CET)
- Here is an overview of the product ecology:
