yobbo II
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Magnetite containers and reaction vessels
Iron can be converted into magnetite using steam in a furnace at around 1000C. The iron (say a cup shaped piece) is placed into the furnace and steam
is streamed in for about 10 hours and the iron is converted to magnetite. See patent.
What is the thermal conductivity of magnetite? I cannot find an answer on line.
It has poor thermal shock resistance I believe.
Can oxides of other metals be made in a similar manner.
If one were to heat zirconium in a furnace and stream in steam would you end up with a zirconia container. I have me doubts.
See us 2,727,842 for converting steel into magnetite.
Yob
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Fulmen
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Good find. But this will only apply to steels, other metal oxides will behave differently both chemically and physical.
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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yobbo II
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Some cooked iron pieces.
Some of the pieces are broken as I broke them to see of the iron was all gone.
All the iron is gone on the spiral shaped piece (a 2.5 mm welding rod) and the iron that has a slow twist to it.
The run was about 14 hours, less would have probably done the job.
Another piece shows a piece of the original iron sticking out as the oven broke down after about 8 hours. It would have needed about 12 hours to cook
all the way through.
Picture a shows a selection of iron pieces before going into oven.
There are some defects on the pieces in picutre b. This is caused by the pieces being in contact with quarts tubes that I used to furniture in the
oven. The spiral I hung up using nichrome wire which can be seen stuck to the ends.
Even a piece of rustproof stainless steel was converted to magnetite. It was rustproof as it was in the open for a few years. It come from the inside
of the rubber of a car wiper. I should have tried some ss welding rods of known composition to see if they would hold up. Pure nickel holds up well
but is brittle when run is finished. Grade 2 titaniun is converted to a black crisp (very thin piece anyways).
Furniture for placeing the pieces is not easy to obtain. Fused quarts blends into the piece.
What could you use?
Nichrome wire used to hang the pieces up seems to work OK.
The magnetite is not very conductive.
Yob
 
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Texium
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Thread Moved
27-11-2023 at 11:03 |
yobbo II
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Hello all,
The following is based on US 2,727,842. Converting Iron to magnetite using heat and steam.
Water used at 8 (5 hours) is 2.8 litres, thats 8 cc per minute at three amps into kettle.
Amps were 150 or there abouts for the first 5 hours or so.
After that the Amps lowered to 140 or so with the Variac around 6.5.
The thing seemed to stabalize with current at 130 to 134 with variac at 6.1.
Run went from 2:20 to 8:00 when Temp was around 1000C.
The run was continued to 6:15AM 10.25 hours at temperature mostly above 1050.
The following is based on US 2,727,842. Converting Iron to magnetite using heat and steam.
The oven was run at around 1100C for a total of 15 hours. Steam was added using a domestic kettle power by a variac.
A tube ran the steam into the oven.
The heating elements were powered by a welder transformer and a large variac. There was no control as such.
A quantity of iron bits and pieces where loaded into the oven together with a piece of Cu and W.
At end of run:
'Disimilar metals' welding rod had a small amount of scale.
Cast Iron welding rod (Nickel?) had a small amount of scale.
A pure Nickle rod was just discoloured.
Inconel was just discolored with very small amount of scale.
Tungsted rod had small amount of scale.
Welding rod, type xxxx , aaamm dia. was fully converted both the straight piece and the piece coiled into a spring.
A six inch nail, 5.9mm dia. was almost fully converted.
An actual spring (high carbon steel) was fully converted.
The hacksaw blade was fully converted.
The piece of Copper wire was fully converted.
A piece of non magnetic stainless steel had light scaling.
A large flat piece of mild steel that was 3.25mm thick was not fully converted. It has a sliver of metal 0.9mm thick in its interior.
The thickness was now 5.5mm.
If any of the objects are in contact with the alumina brick, some alumina sticks to the object.
Same goes for the quarts tubes.
Some of the pieced were hung on the inconel 'hangers' using Nichrome wire from a domestic heater.
This wire seems to hold up well.
When the oven reached 1000C a test piece of mild steel was removed from the oven to see how much Magnetite would be formed at this stage.
When measured the formed Magnetite was 0.3mm thick. The formation of Mag. is low speed when the temp. is below 1000C.
A wedge shaped piece of mild steel was placed into the oven to see how much steel would be converted during the run.
The wedge is shown in a picture. It was fully converted where it was thinner that approx. 3mm. I was surprised so little of it was converted, only
1.5mm thickness (coming from each side).
The 5.9mm dia. nail was almost fully converted. It appears the type of mild steel makes a difference to speed of conversion.
Some blisters form but they are shallow. It would appear they form at the very start?
Attachment: magnetite.zip (485kB)
This file has been downloaded 39 times
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yobbo II
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Another run.
10 hours.
Similar temp. to last run, between 1000 and 1110C + steam.
Tantalum sheet about 2mm thick ended up as a pile of white powder on the bottom of the oven.
Masonry nail fully converted.
Cobalt drill bit fully converted.
10 pence British coin 2002 (cupro nickel) became an ugly blister
2 euro coin 2002 as per the picture. This is a bi-metal coin. Outside ring is Cu-Ni. Inside is layers of Nickle/brass-Nickle-Nickle/Brass
10 cent euro coin 2002 became a pool of metal on the oven bottom and was not converted. It is alloy called Nordic Gold which is 89 Cu, 5 Al, 5 Zn, 1
Sn.
A tin can (half bean can) was converted as per the picture.
A piece of Manganese had a layer converted that was approx. 1.3mm thick. It looked very like a meteorite. It was very smooth with no blistering on the
outside.
Pieces of electronic silicon were untouched.
A brass brazing rod was hung up and melted into pieces onto the floor but was largely unconverted. It was described as 1.6% Silicon Bronze brazing
rod.
A Titanium rod was largely unaffected with some scaling. You would think that the Ta and Ti would hold up similarly. Edit: Just discovered that it
was not Ti but a SS welding rod.
I intend to use the Magnetite as anodes.
What other exciting bits and pieces could I put in the oven?
Would heavy walled steel cups etc be any use as reaction vessels when converted to Magnetite?
As an edit to this:
The manganese has become magnetic. A chip of the pure metal will not stick to a magnet, a piece of the oxidized stuff will.
I thought it was the nichrome wire that was imbedded in tbe piece that was causing it but it is not. How can that be.
Yob
 
[Edited on 5-9-2025 by yobbo II]
[Edited on 5-9-2025 by yobbo II]
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bariumbromate
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cool, what furnace did you use?
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bnull
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| Quote: | | What other exciting bits and pieces could I put in the oven? |
Soft iron thingies from transformer core, thin wire mesh. Sooner or later you're going to use a cylinder of fine wire mesh in some electrolysis, so...
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Pumukli
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Interesting experiments but... I can't get it why a magnetite vessel would be more desirable/superior than say a stainless steel one?
Aren't magnetite things rigid, brittle, unpredictable (micro)porous nasties?
You want to use them as electrodes while their conductivity is (much) worse than those of pure metals?
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yobbo II
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The oven is homemade using two layers of alumina bricks surrounded with some house insulation (fiber glass).
The bricks have 26 written on them so I think they are good to 2600F. (around 1450C)
It is about 6 litres capacity.
Their is two U shaped molybdenum disilicide elements with an active U depth of about 8 inches, 20cm. (The Le
length is 20cm in Kanthal gargan).
The elements are also called Super Kanthal. I think they are the 1800C type. They appear. on ebay sometimes for
not too outragous of a price.
They have a max. 200 Amps rating but I can only put in 140 or so as my power supply is only capable of that.
The supply being a welding transformer and a large variac. Voltage across the two elements in series is about 12V ac.
It takes about 5 hours for it to reach 1000C, very slow IMO. There is not control as such, just turn down the variac. 130A
seems to keep the temp. around 1100C when all gets stabilized.
The magnetite rods are much more conductive in their interior. When a meter is connected from the middle of one broken end
to the middle of the other broken end you get acceptable conductivity. No conductivity when the meter probes is placed on the rod
surface.
Oxides that are conductive are often conductive because they are non stoichiometric. Pure magnetite (Fe3O4) is not conductive
but Fe2.99O4.11 is (or perhaps its the other way around).
I will have to try and strip the outer layer off them to get rid of the non conduction part. I think a mixture of Oxalic and nitric acids will do it.
I am using oxides for electrolysis as pure metals are no good for electrolysis, they corrode.
If there was something I could alloy with iron so that the magnetite would be conductive (all of it) when formed it might be useful.
I was also thinking that vessels made from magnetite might be useful for harsh chemical reactions. The vessels are easy to make in
any shape so long as you can make an iron vessel of the same shape and just convert to Magnetite.
Perhaps magnetite is too porous or brittle or too reactive.
Would it take the heat needed for P making or SO3 making?
Yob
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Twospoons
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If you can do a controlled atmosphere in your furnace (argon, or hydrogen) you could try to make a Ti4O7 electrode (Magneli phase titanium oxide).
There seem to be a few ways to do this - reduction of TiO2/Ti powder in argon, reduction of TiO2/C in argon, reduction of TiO2 with hydrogen. Most
seem to need temps in the 900C to 1100C range.
Helicopter: "helico" -> spiral, "pter" -> with wings
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