Producing iron from salt water and iron oxide

The iron and steel industry creates 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions, as much as all the world's passenger vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency . A new low-temperature electrochemical process that produces metallic iron from iron oxide and saltwater could help clean up steelmaking's act ( Joule 2024, DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2024.01.001 ). Extracting iron from iron oxide ores— one of the first steps in steelmaking —typically involves roasting a mixture of the crushed ore and coke in a blast furnace at temperatures of up to 1,200 °C. Both the burning of coal to heat the furnace and the reactions that strip oxygen from ore produce CO 2 . Paul Kempler , a chemical engineer at the University of Oregon who developed the new low-temperature method, says the method could be driven by renewable electricity and use purified seawater as a source of salt. The by-products of the process, sodium