Future Life: The Environment
No more coke
However, Chemical Engineers have invented an ingenious new way of making iron that removes the need for coke altogether.
This holy grail of iron-making involves a form of direct smelting known as HiSmelt.
One of the clever parts of this is that scientists use the heat from iron that has already been melted to fuel the process.
A molten bath of the already hot iron is bombarded at high speed with iron ore and coal.
The result is that there are no toxic coke oven gases produced from the making of the iron - for the simple reason that no coke is used in the first place.
Nor is the carbon dioxide that is produced a danger any longer to the
planet's health.