Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Brian H]

JimmyT wrote: Brian,
You’re right about the carbon in the steel. But, I thought the general thrust of the thread was all that nasty CO2 (aka plant food) produced during the reduction process. Reduction using hydrogen would avoid that. And that carbon within the steel wouldn’t end up as CO2. At least until all the steel rusts. Fluxing is always done using limestone which probably introduces enough carbon for the hardening process.

And by the way, you and I do agree about the fallacy of the CO2/Global warming thing and about the primacy of the importance of focus fusion.

As an aside; I wonder if ultra pure Fe might be produced using hydrogen reduction. Coal inevitability introduces so many impurities. It would be interesting to explore ultra pure iron’s properties. Probably already been done.

Yeah, purity is big. Hence “coking”, or roasting all the junk out of coal or charcoal.

And I’ve read somewhere that very pure Fe cast in microgravity (orbit) is actually very hard, harder even than steel, because of the lack of inclusions in the “crystal” structure.