Smelting iron in an hydrogen atmosphere

[Moontanman]

Would hypothetical intelligent creatures on a world with an extensive hydrogen atmosphere, no oxygen, these creatures would metabolize hydrogen and exhale methane, would these creatures be able to smelt iron, could a hydrogen atmosphere produce an energy source like an oxygen atmosphere does for us? I imagine such creatures forever stuck in the stone age with maybe a rudimentary use of native metals.

[swansont]

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Moderator Note

Moved to Chemistry

[Xittenn]

How strict is the no oxygen condition? I mean can there be water, or are the oceans methane as well? It is possible to make an electric arc furnace. One could theoretically be made entirely of ceramics and clay. But, even ceramics and clay require oxygen as part of their chemical makeup.

 

If there is no oxygen why are they smelting . . .

[Moontanman]

Since oxygen is such a huge part of the universe i am going to have to assume water oceans, possibly an ammonia water mix, and oxygen bound to the elements of the crust. But the atmosphere is reducing, mostly high pressure hydrogen. I say high pressure because a planet large enough to retain hydrogen would probably retain quite a large atmosphere but I am assuming no layers of high pressure ices but a regular crust similar to the earth. The real question here is it possible to produce high energy from a hydrogen atmosphere through some easily discovered natural process like combustion and use that to smelt metals... Electricity is an interesting option...

 

How strict is the no oxygen condition? I mean can there be water, or are the oceans methane as well? It is possible to make an electric arc furnace. One could theoretically be made entirely of ceramics and clay. But, even ceramics and clay require oxygen as part of their chemical makeup.

 

If there is no oxygen why are they smelting . . .

 

They need to melt and alloy metals to get past the stone age. Extracting metals from ore is called smelting isn't it? If not i misspoke for sure.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Moontanman

[John Cuthber]

I suspect that it takes quite a lot of energy to be intelligent. I guess that any life form that evolved which was intelligent could capitalise on the same energy source that it fed from to do things like smelt iron.

 

Incidentally, in a hydrogen atmosphere, smelting iron would be easy- heat the oxide in a stream of "air".

It would also have the advantage that it wouldn't rust.

[Moontanman]

I suspect that it takes quite a lot of energy to be intelligent. I guess that any life form that evolved which was intelligent could capitalise on the same energy source that it fed from to do things like smelt iron.

 

I'm not sure i agree with that, a living organism uses catalysts to speed up processes to meet it's energy needs. True that metabolizing hydrogen to create methane isn't as energetic as metabolizing oxygen to create CO2 but organisms do it on or in the earth so we know the chemical pathways are there.

 

Incidentally, in a hydrogen atmosphere, smelting iron would be easy- heat the oxide in a stream of "air".

It would also have the advantage that it wouldn't rust.

 

How do you heat that air with a stone age technology?

[John Cuthber]

We can only get lots of power in an easy way by exploiting plants which store solar energy. They do it slowly, but on a huge scale.

In doing so they "bank" energy as fossil fuel and oxygen.

 

Any life anywhere would have to get the energy from somewhere. Solar power is usually going to look like a good bet. (Geothermal heat would work too)

My contention is that, unless you can rely on something else to do a lot of that energy harvesting for you, you won't have enough power to run a brain as powerful as ours.

 

"How do you heat that air with a stone age technology? " The same way you run your muscles- but faster.

I can eat plants and harvest the energy slowly or I can burn them and get lots of heat in a hurry.

I can't see how intelligent life could get started without some "pre packed" energy like this.

[Xittenn]

They need to melt and alloy metals to get past the stone age. Extracting metals from ore is called smelting isn't it? If not i misspoke for sure.

 

 

I was referring to the process itself. Smelting kind of implies--to me--a chemical process by which impurities, especially oxygen, are removed from metals during purification of raw ore. I believe if oxygen were not present in the ore, the smelting process would not be required. Instead the ore could simply be melted and fractionally separated. My definitions are probably off though so forgive my comment, I can never seem to use the correct definition for smelting.

[John Cuthber]

Perhaps it's time to sort out the meanings of words first.

Here on earth a few metals sometimes occur naturally as elements (albeit, not usually very pure). Gold, mercury, silver and platinum are often found as metals -copper sometimes is.

 

For these metals (on earth) it would be sufficient to bash them between two rocks. The impurities are relatively brittle and will be powdered. The metals will cold- weld together. Once you have lumps of metals you can hammer them into shape.

Alternatively, you could melt these metals. They would turn to liquids and the other materials (sand etc) would float to the top and you could skim it off.

You could then pour the molten metal into a mould.

 

Most metals (at least here on earth) don't occur as the free metal. They are found as compounds, often oxides (though for some metals the sulphides are common too). These compounds are called ores (the word has some other similar meanings too).

Hitting these with a rock, or heating them wouldn't help.

The oxides would melt if you got them hot enough (which would often be difficult) but it wouldn't become a metal.

 

If you heat these oxides with some other material like carbon which combines readily with oxygen then the oxygen in the ore swaps partners and reacts with the carbon (forming carbon dioxide which is a gas and dissipates into the atmosphere) and the metal is left behind as the element.

You can then cast it or hammer it into shape.

 

The process of converting an ore into a metal (often, but not always, by reaction with hot carbon) is called smelting.

Edited May 17, 2012 by John Cuthber

[Moontanman]

We can only get lots of power in an easy way by exploiting plants which store solar energy. They do it slowly, but on a huge scale.

In doing so they "bank" energy as fossil fuel and oxygen.

 

Any life anywhere would have to get the energy from somewhere. Solar power is usually going to look like a good bet. (Geothermal heat would work too)

My contention is that, unless you can rely on something else to do a lot of that energy harvesting for you, you won't have enough power to run a brain as powerful as ours.

 

"How do you heat that air with a stone age technology? " The same way you run your muscles- but faster.

I can eat plants and harvest the energy slowly or I can burn them and get lots of heat in a hurry.

I can't see how intelligent life could get started without some "pre packed" energy like this.

 

 

i think i have to agree, even though a sun powered saturation/unsaturation process that allowed animals to breath hydrogen and exhale methane and for plants to take in methane and give off hydrogen is chemically possible. Chemically this would be a close opposite to what happens on the earth, it would be energy deficient compared to an oxygen atmosphere and sequestered hydrocarbons.

 

I think such beings would be in the same "boat" as an underwater intelligence, all dressed up and no way to progress.