Formation of Copper–Nickel Alloy from Their Oxide Mixtures Through Reduction by Low-Temperature Hydrogen Plasma

Physics and Chemistry of Solid State Direct Reduction of Iron Ore by Hydrogen Plasma

“…In search for some low-carbon footprint technologies, hydrogen (H2) has been found as the most suitable candidate to replace carbon [1,[4][5]. H2 is the strongest candidate because it possesses thermodynamic and kinetic advantages [1,4,[14][15][16][17][18][19][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] compared to CO2. Also, the reduction product is environmental friendly water (H2O) and a very low quantity of H2 consumed per tonne of iron.…”

“…The thermodynamic and kinetic limitations of H2 could be successfully removed by HP [1,4,[6][7][8][9][10][23][24][25] due to the excited species present in it. These excited species are rotationally-excited and vibrationally-excited hydrogen molecules (H2 * ), atomic hydrogen (H), and ionic hydrogen (H + ), etc.…”

“…They can be produced by the application of direct current (DC), alternating current (AC), radiofrequency (RF), microwave (MW), or any other electromagnetic (EM) field. Recently, by using a simple microwave setup, several metals and alloys could be produced by HP, for example, iron from hematite (Fe2O3) and iron ore [1,6,23], Copper from Cupric oxide (CuO) [8], Cobalt from Cobalt oxide (Co3O4) [7], and alloys like FeCo alloy from Fe2O3 and Co3O4 mixture [9], CuNi alloy from CuO and NiO mixture [10], CuCo alloy from CuO and Co3O4 mixture [25], etc. The production of other metals by these HP methods has been extensively reviewed by Sabat et al [1,4].…”

“…Non-thermal plasma has already been used for several purposes such as thin-film deposition, etching of semiconductor, production of ozone, cleaning of gas, the surface of plastics modification, plasma displays, etc. Recently, the production of metals and alloys from various metal oxides and the mixtures of metal oxides or ores have been reported by Sabat et al [1,4,[6][7][8][9][10][23][24][25].…”

“…The percentage reductions for each period were estimated from the weight loss measurements by digital weighing balance with accuracy 0.1 x 10 -6 kg. Using this microwave setup, Sabat et al [1,4,[6][7][8][9][10][23][24][25] reported the production of Fe from Fe2O3 [1,6,23], Cu from CuO [8], Co from Co3O4 [7], and alloys like FeCo alloy [9], CuNi alloy [10], CuCo alloy [25], etc., from the reduction of metal oxide mixtures. The details are available in the respective references.…”