MIT accidentally discovered a cleaner smelting process

[Egnever]

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

MIT Professor of Materials Science Donald Sadoway had originally intended to test a new chemical configuration of a high capacity battery, but the experiment wouldn't hold a charge. "We found that when we went to charge this putative battery," he explained to MIT News, "we were in fact producing liquid antimony instead of charging the battery." It turns out, a new element added to the experimental battery acted as an ionic conductor, causing the antimony sulfide in the experiment to separate.

It turned out the battery was performing electrolysis, and the metal it was producing was 99.9 percent pure. That got the researcher's attention -- traditional smelting produces large quantities of greenhouse gas, and is a significant contributor of air pollutants. Sadoway's accidental smelting process produced almost none.

Science! So cool, even when things go wrong you learn stuff!

[jberryhill]

1. They who smelt it...

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R ...... nt

[AgadorSparticus]

3. Wow. How exciting!

[burrowowl]

4. K&R

[TeamPooka]

5. So many scientific advancements have occurred from people screwing up. nt

[backscatter712]

6. Nice, this can be a hell of a lot cleaner for the environment.

The traditional process for smelting iron from ore involve putting it in a furnace, mixed with coal or charcoal. The charcoal is burned with the iron ore in deliberately incomplete combustion, so you get carbon and carbon monoxide grabbing oxygen atoms from iron oxide, leaving iron metal, and a hell of a lot of polluting emissions.

If iron and other metals can be smelted using electrolysis, that would be faaaaar less nasty for the environment.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Sheldon would call it an epic fail.

Penny, penny, penny...