Thank you for posting this demonstration. It turns out that this concept is sometimes used to enhance the extraction of iron ore by changing the oxidation state ( and magnetic properties) at mines. It is also being heavily studied as a method of fully reducing iron oxides to refined iron vs using CO based reduction in Europe.
Excellent demonstration! for the longest time I was under the impression that hydrogen couldn't reduce iron oxide because iron was too reactive, and held onto the oxygen too tightly, but that's not the case at all! I really really want to see this same experiment done while the iron oxide is a liquid, but that would require an expensive setup, and equipment.
According to information I found on the web, this reaction isn’t a normal electrochemical redox reaction and is an endothermic process meaning that it doesn’t really want to happen.
Do you mean to melt the iron oxides at 1500 - 1800 C and then introduce the hydrogen, or create, or to dissolve iron oxide into an acids solution at roughly 20 - 40 C? In molten oxides what would happen is a very rapid and aggressive reaction, resulting in molten iron in the same general temperature range. I believe that it is endothermic so some heat will still needed. For the acidic solution, I believe that electrical energy is needed to drive the reaction in the form of a cell, but I am not sure if it will come out as Fe or not with the acid trying to re dissolve it or not. I should know but would have to read up on it again.
@@harryniedecken5321 I was suggesting a melt, not an aqueous reaction. the idea is that since this this is an endothermic reaction, then adding LOTS of heat will drive the reaction to form the products i.e. iron metal and water vapor. and as long as the water vapor is removed as it forms, then the reverse reaction would not be able to occur, and this would further encourage the forward reaction forming iron. of course to do this would require that we continuously flow hydrogen gas over the iron oxide, and this would take a lot of hydrogen, but since the only other gas present is water vapor, this means that we can have a copper outlet pipe that circulates the hydrogen back to the start, and put some ice water on the copper pipe, and all the water vapor will condense on the copper pipe and only the hydrogen will circulate back around to react with the iron. this way we don't waste hydrogen. as this continues however, we would slowly lose pressure until there was no hydrogen present and only a little puddle of water in the copper pipe, so we would also need a hydrogen gas tank continuously slowly feeding the system with hydrogen gas to replace the gas that's used up. this is a fully functioning system, and as long as there are no leaks, the inside would be oxygen free, impurity free, and entirely contained, and as long as its hot enough, then both the iron and iron oxide would be liquid, and they would separate by forming beads of liquid iron and liquid iron oxide since they are not miscible with each other. honestly a pretty neat system which could go to completion and have only the byproduct of water. this also makes relatively pure iron metal without any carbon, although there will likely be a hydrogen impurity present in the iron.
@@synth1002 Both wustite (FeO) and magnetite (Fe₃O₄) have a lower oxygen to iron ratio than the original hematite (Fe₂O₃). The oxygen to iron ratios are 1:1, 4:3 and 3:2, respectively. Convert to sixths and you get, 6:6, 8:6 and 9:6.
nah man you have it reversed, pure iron is relativally less reactive then hydrogen, it's why hydrogen can reduce hematite with the same heat that charcoal can't
Oxidation potential of iron is ( determine the ability of element to replace another one ) higher than that of hydrogen but it relatively low compared with the oxidation potential of aluminum so this reaction can't occur with aluminum oxide even with high temperature
0:38 That flame on the end of the tube really looks like a still image smoothly faded in on top of the picture. If you look carefully, it looks like it slightly moved during the "fade-in" but other than that I see no movement. I can also see it moves relative to wall behind it when the camera pans, but I can't clearly see signs of the flame itself looking 3D.
It was poor camera work, with the lights on and the focus the flame at the end of the tube does look strange. Remember there will not be any normal visible colour with burning hydrogen; I think the sodium in the glass provided the slight colour.
probably not. water is much less stable than iron oxide and has less energy so this is an endothermic reaction (it consumes energy). a catalyst reduces the activation energy of a reaction (the energy required to start a reaction). because the reaction consumes energy, the catalyst cannot make it happen without an energy source (where would the energy consumed by the reaction come from?). the heat from the torch in this video is actually consumed as a reactant and cannot be replaced by a catalyst.
That's true , you can't direcly convert Fe2O3 ( rust ) to metallic iron just by using hydrogen as a reducing agent , a more common and better reducing agent is carbon , which is used industrially to produce iron metal from the iron oxide ore , but uses much higher temperatures , enough to melt the iron formed , which aren't possible to achieve with a simple torch , so the product formed in the video is indeed magnetite .
Actually apparently you can arxiv.org/pdf/0803.2831.pdf wish they'd had done a run with a lower temperature yet.. I was confused seeing this since the conversion is so fast compared to that study.. But afaics now, it's because 1)it is magnetite here, not iron and 2)the experiment vessel initially filled with Argon. Those temperatures are reachable? Though i see Pyrex advising upper limit of 390C.
It should be possible to convert hematite to iron metal by reduction using hydrogen. The reduction will have multiple steps, yes magnetite will also be formed along the route but the final product can be pure iron metal. Thermodynamically this is possible given sufficient heat, check out the ellingham diagram to confirm that this is possible. Next time I run this experiment I will try to send a sample for XRD analysis to confirm if iron metal is formed.@@ryanoliveira871
@@ryanoliveira871 Hydrogen can reduce hematite to metallic iron. The intermediate product is magnetite and wustite. But the eventual product is metallic iron and water.
Thank you for posting this demonstration.
It turns out that this concept is sometimes used to enhance the extraction of iron ore by changing the oxidation state ( and magnetic properties) at mines. It is also being heavily studied as a method of fully reducing iron oxides to refined iron vs using CO based reduction in Europe.
Quite interesting how easy that work, compared to the coal reduction process, that needs like 1500°C
Great video
Excellent demonstration! for the longest time I was under the impression that hydrogen couldn't reduce iron oxide because iron was too reactive, and held onto the oxygen too tightly, but that's not the case at all! I really really want to see this same experiment done while the iron oxide is a liquid, but that would require an expensive setup, and equipment.
According to information I found on the web, this reaction isn’t a normal electrochemical redox reaction and is an endothermic process meaning that it doesn’t really want to happen.
@@Auroral_Anomaly ah, I see, what drives the reaction?
@@Metal_Master_YT I’m not sure, but it’s not an ordinary redox reaction.
Do you mean to melt the iron oxides at 1500 - 1800 C and then introduce the hydrogen, or create, or to dissolve iron oxide into an acids solution at roughly 20 - 40 C?
In molten oxides what would happen is a very rapid and aggressive reaction, resulting in molten iron in the same general temperature range. I believe that it is endothermic so some heat will still needed.
For the acidic solution, I believe that electrical energy is needed to drive the reaction in the form of a cell, but I am not sure if it will come out as Fe or not with the acid trying to re dissolve it or not. I should know but would have to read up on it again.
@@harryniedecken5321 I was suggesting a melt, not an aqueous reaction. the idea is that since this this is an endothermic reaction, then adding LOTS of heat will drive the reaction to form the products i.e. iron metal and water vapor. and as long as the water vapor is removed as it forms, then the reverse reaction would not be able to occur, and this would further encourage the forward reaction forming iron. of course to do this would require that we continuously flow hydrogen gas over the iron oxide, and this would take a lot of hydrogen, but since the only other gas present is water vapor, this means that we can have a copper outlet pipe that circulates the hydrogen back to the start, and put some ice water on the copper pipe, and all the water vapor will condense on the copper pipe and only the hydrogen will circulate back around to react with the iron. this way we don't waste hydrogen. as this continues however, we would slowly lose pressure until there was no hydrogen present and only a little puddle of water in the copper pipe, so we would also need a hydrogen gas tank continuously slowly feeding the system with hydrogen gas to replace the gas that's used up. this is a fully functioning system, and as long as there are no leaks, the inside would be oxygen free, impurity free, and entirely contained, and as long as its hot enough, then both the iron and iron oxide would be liquid, and they would separate by forming beads of liquid iron and liquid iron oxide since they are not miscible with each other. honestly a pretty neat system which could go to completion and have only the byproduct of water. this also makes relatively pure iron metal without any carbon, although there will likely be a hydrogen impurity present in the iron.
brilliant
Are the iron particles that are produced pyrophoric?
How much hydrogen did you put in?
But how do you know that what you've produced is metallic iron and not magnetite or wüstite?
good question, I had the same thought.
I looked at Wikipedia for the answer. The wursite would decompose during cooling interestingly.
Because you need extra oxygen to make magnetite. He produced water, so oxygen is TAKEN FROM the Fe2O3...
@@synth1002
Both wustite (FeO) and magnetite (Fe₃O₄) have a lower oxygen to iron ratio than the original hematite (Fe₂O₃). The oxygen to iron ratios are 1:1, 4:3 and 3:2, respectively. Convert to sixths and you get, 6:6, 8:6 and 9:6.
@@wwindsunrain You are totally right. video is misleading
What's the white stuff and its purpose in the tube? You never said in your video.
The white stuff that I failed to mention in the video is glass wool to help keep the powder in the reduction tube and prevent blocking the exit.
This looks like "Twiggy" Forrest much talked about (in Australia) idea of "Green Steel".
ITS A MADNESS
But isn't iron higher up than hydrogen in the reactiivty series? so how can hydrogen reduce iron since its of lower reactivity
Temperature is everything ;)
nah man you have it reversed, pure iron is relativally less reactive then hydrogen, it's why hydrogen can reduce hematite with the same heat that charcoal can't
Oxidation potential of iron is ( determine the ability of element to replace another one ) higher than that of hydrogen but it relatively low compared with the oxidation potential of aluminum so this reaction can't occur with aluminum oxide even with high temperature
is that iron or magnetite?
0:38 That flame on the end of the tube really looks like a still image smoothly faded in on top of the picture. If you look carefully, it looks like it slightly moved during the "fade-in" but other than that I see no movement. I can also see it moves relative to wall behind it when the camera pans, but I can't clearly see signs of the flame itself looking 3D.
It was poor camera work, with the lights on and the focus the flame at the end of the tube does look strange. Remember there will not be any normal visible colour with burning hydrogen; I think the sodium in the glass provided the slight colour.
@H.H. hydrogen gas burns and gives off almost no visible light, the light it does produce is outside the visible spectrum.
That was very fast
It is iron ii oxide not iron iron is silvery ash metal not black metal
Can use carbon instead?
Yes you can. With carbon you would produce CO during the reduction
Is there any catalyst that is capable of reducing the temperature (to about room temperature) for the reaction to occur at roughly the same rate?
probably not.
water is much less stable than iron oxide and has less energy so this is an endothermic reaction (it consumes energy).
a catalyst reduces the activation energy of a reaction (the energy required to start a reaction).
because the reaction consumes energy, the catalyst cannot make it happen without an energy source (where would the energy consumed by the reaction come from?).
the heat from the torch in this video is actually consumed as a reactant and cannot be replaced by a catalyst.
@@benharris3100 well evidently room temperature isn't absolute zero, we have a whole 300 Kelvin to work with here.
Needs neodyum, to electrical wire
you dont know what youre trying to say
hydrogen is a metal like sodium!
Your final product is magnitite not iron
Why is that?
That's true , you can't direcly convert Fe2O3 ( rust ) to metallic iron just by using hydrogen as a reducing agent , a more common and better reducing agent is carbon , which is used industrially to produce iron metal from the iron oxide ore , but uses much higher temperatures , enough to melt the iron formed , which aren't possible to achieve with a simple torch , so the product formed in the video is indeed magnetite .
Actually apparently you can arxiv.org/pdf/0803.2831.pdf wish they'd had done a run with a lower temperature yet..
I was confused seeing this since the conversion is so fast compared to that study.. But afaics now, it's because 1)it is magnetite here, not iron and 2)the experiment vessel initially filled with Argon.
Those temperatures are reachable? Though i see Pyrex advising upper limit of 390C.
It should be possible to convert hematite to iron metal by reduction using hydrogen. The reduction will have multiple steps, yes magnetite will also be formed along the route but the final product can be pure iron metal. Thermodynamically this is possible given sufficient heat, check out the ellingham diagram to confirm that this is possible.
Next time I run this experiment I will try to send a sample for XRD analysis to confirm if iron metal is formed.@@ryanoliveira871
@@ryanoliveira871 Hydrogen can reduce hematite to metallic iron. The intermediate product is magnetite and wustite. But the eventual product is metallic iron and water.
Fe3O4