What happens when you smelt rust?

[gba2331]

My son occasionally comes up with a surprisinfly interesting question, the latest is "what happens if you smelt down rust, do you get iron?"

I’m thinking the answer is yes, rust is Fe2O3 so the iron should still be there, but is that 100% true or do you lose some somehow?

FWIW a Google search turns up a lot of gaming-related posts, so no help there….

 

[bwringer]

Yeah, pretty much.

Most iron ores are oxides (rust, and fancy rust) mixed in with other stuff, so smelting is how you remove the oxygen and get the iron.

Iron ore - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[zendriver]

The answer is "yes"

Heat just melts it back into stable iron

 

[sz0k30]

Used to go smelt fishing!

 

[whitesco]

I usually look to reduce the iron in my diet when I smelt rust.


//end really bad fart joke

 

[Captain Spaulding]

The answer is "yes"

Heat just melts it back into stable iron

More complicated. You add a reducing agent to the mix, which gets rid of the oxygen. Charcoal or coke are used for iron. The coke smelting process was a big deal when discovered a few centuries ago.

 

[Lassen Forge]

I used to do a LOT of rust removal with a power wire brush, so I smelt rust all the time. Even in my sleep!




But yes, smelting removes the oxides. You'll still have "impurities" from whatever it was you started with (most "rusty iron" is actually a steel of some kind) and depending on HOW you performe the smelting will determine whether those impurities remain, and what you end up coming off the crucible. I think it would be a FUN project "recovering" unoxidated iron from rusty stuff...

 

[flyingblind]

Rust is fuel in some reactors. At least in its pure iron form. https://spectrum.ieee.org/iron-fuel

 

[Boogerman]

"rust" (iron oxides) is REQUIRED for the smelting process. If the ore or base material is only partially oxidized, i.e. a lot of free iron, it is difficult to get a high enough temperature to melt. The reducing process (combination of some carbon source with the oxygen in the iron oxide) produces a lot of heat, and provides the energy to melt the resulting iron and some of the unreduced iron in the adjacent ore. High quality nodular iron has to be mixed with lower quality iron oxide ores to smelt it easily. At least, historically, that was necessary for the charcoal or coal coke process.

 

[zendriver]

More complicated. You add a reducing agent to the mix, which gets rid of the oxygen. Charcoal or coke are used for iron. The coke smelting process was a big deal when discovered a few centuries ago.

Good point, I just assumed we're not living in the middle of the 19th century.

It's all about the EAF now days, that has that handled, with a relatively simple process.

 

[wssix99]

Yes. Here's an article on how iron oxidized in the early earth's atmosphere into magnetite, which is one of the ores we mine today for iron smelting. https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pe...w-has-the-earth-evolved/banded-iron-formation

 

[jsaw]

Heat rust with a torch, and it pops and explodes

 

[scooby074]

The old wives tale was that recycled steel (ie rust) was the reason modern vehicles rusted out so fast.. Imma gonna duck out now for the sparks to fly

 

[andyvh1959]

HA! Being up here in the midwest, the land of Charlie Berrens, people's interpretation of English is, well, interpretive. It can be like a form of english spoken from a holler in Kentucky, with snow.

When I read the title of the post, I read it as "smelt rust" like someone was talking past tense about buying a 80s vintage Chevy from a local seller in Sobeiski (north of Green Bay), and the deal went south. Kind of like, "well, ya know, I seen dis Chevy for sale up der near Sobeiski, so's I drives up dere wit Jimmy ta check it out, since Jimmy he knows his Chevys. Looks like a good deal, but den I opened da trunk and smelt rust ya, big time, and I says, ope, no not fer me. I don gots $800 ta spend on a car like dat."