It’s true. Give me a hot and dense enough furnace and I’ll recycle everything into iron. EVERYTHING.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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Even denser and I'll make it neutronium.
... But not too dense or it becomes ???.
Hawking radiation.... eventually.
I'll have two ingots of that, please.
I'm fine with just a bite. I'll go fetch my habanero sauce.
Wouldn't the hot part actually make it harder...? All you want is density and as little to counter gravity as possible.
Fair enough, though I promise at those pressures things get spicy.
Its harder but its necessary i guess. For ionisation
Why? What for?
I guess to overcome electron degeneracy pressure. Nucleus would collide more easily when electrons are stripped away. Not sure if i am conpletely true though
Heat means more vibrations, which means less density and more force needed to compress the matter to the same density. Just compare any solid material to plasma. Or the 100 million kelvin plasma at ITER, which has an absurdly low density (like a high vacuum) but still 1 bar of pressure due to the thermal pressure.
Electron degeneracy pressure is always present when there are electrons, regardless if they are part of an atom or free moving in a plasma.
Higher heat also means more violent collisions. It would be much harder to collide nucleus by just pressing it. But yeah maybe with even more pressure it might happen but nuclear reactions usually happen with high speed collisions.
When electrons are bound to nucleus, it may prevent collision by having an additional layer causing degeneracy pressure between two colliding nucleus. That won't happen if electrons are unbounded to nucleus. Atleast that's what i imagine
The electron pressure is always there.
But you are right regarding the thermal energy making fusions easier, which can happen at any pressure or density with enough velocity. At this point I am not even sure which of the 2 approaches (cold and far denser or hot and far less dense) would be "easier", where we would have to first define what easier would actually be...
I am thinking, that when ionised, electron pressure only holds electrons away but does not prevent nuclear collisions because they are unbounded to electrons. But when not ionised, atoms are being pused together with electron repulsion holding back the nucleus.
I also doubt if the furnace is cold and high pressure, overcoming electron degeneracy pressure causes inverse beta decay and turns the thing into a neutron star? Then you wouldn't get new elements but a pile of neutrons?
In stars, nuclear reactions happen at high temperatures and pressure and at death stage of a massive star(becoming a neutron star), all the electron degeneracy pressure is overcame by gravity and the same inverse beta decay happens and protons and electrons combine to give massive pile of neutrons.
If you think of a bunch of solid atoms(low temp) put in high pressure, why would nucleus react anyway? Nucleus are bound by electrons and are not able to collide with other nucleus in that state. Electrons need to combine into the nucleus with high pressure. For the case of hot plasma, nucleus are able to move through the electrons and react. You don't need to overcome electron degeneracy pressure for that.
(I think i said things that i earlier said i'm not sure about, but this is a bit more thoughtful response while others were sent in a hurry mind)
Electron repulsion is irrelevant compared to the energies needed for fusion. It only takes a few eV to throw electrons out orbit, since they are so far away from the nucleus. On the other hand, a nucleus itself would be attracted to these electrons equally much approaching them and passing them, resulting in a net 0 effect.
The electrostatic effect of the 2 positive nuclei repelling is WAY larger due to the extremely small distances needed for fusion.
What about the inverse beta decay thing? If electrons are also being compressed it should end up becoming neutrons right?
Electron repulsion might be irrelevant but being bound to electrons isn't. Electrons aren't being thrown out of the orbit here since its cold. It's getting squished into.
(I also disagree with the net zero claim, due to the sheilding effect of outer electrons, but still that too is irrelevant so np)
If there is enough pressure to make neutrons, we are well past making iron. They are pushed into the core regardless if they are bound to the classical orbits or in a plasma state, the latter at these pressures really does not mean anything anymore, the electrons can freely move in any case.
The + charge of the nucleus is accelerated to the electrons, so it first gets faster, then just as much slower again when it flies past them.
Umm why are they accelerated to electrons?
For the same reason nuclei repel each other: opposite charges attracted each other, same charge repels.
I don't think i'm getting what you said or you are not getting what I said. It makes no sense to me(not about charge attract thing, but the overall argument). Does the nucleus accelerate when there is electrone cloud on all directions? It just cancels out. But i don't think nucleus will freely move if temperature is low. You don't apply pressure to the nucleus, you apply it to the electron cloud around. Nucleus won't fly off the electron cloud because they are bound by electrons attracting in all directions. Only way I can see neutrons moving is when enough temperature is supplied. Otherwise its just squishing electrons into the nucleus(before squishing nucleii together). I don't understand why you keep it does not matter because there is so much pressure or so. Clarify why you said so
The electrons are not around the atoms as they are at STP conditions. They are already free to move under comparatively small pressure. Example: metallic hydrogen
we already have one
The factory must grow.
Deep down chemists know all chemistry is physics, and that fact makes their bones tremble.
And all physics is just statistics
And all statistics are damned lies.
The Universe has left the chat
They're not recyclable yet. In a few years when we have Mr. Fusions and replicators, things will be different.
Lol literally Recycling everything made of particles would be pretty sick
They are making plastic out of strange quarks!?
What a quarky process recycling is!
plastic bottles are recyclable
PET bottles yes, other plastic bottles not so much, or at least until someone figures out a way to turn plastic trash into a cheap alternative to petroleum.
Not really. Plastic gets damaged when heating it up to melting temps. You won't get a product that has the same properties, unlike with aluminium for instance. You can maybe get away with adding a small percentage of recycled pellets back in, but that's it.
Metals are also not 100% recyclable due to contamination. We just have plenty of use for low grade metal alloys.
Which literally means "anything other than aerospace engineering". Aluminium and other metals are infinitely more recyclable than plastics, which as I've said before, degrade immediately to being barely usable.
Don't most of the contaminants come out as slag? (IDK I'm not an industrial furnace)
It depends on the contaminant. For example, if iron is polluted with carbon, carbon will dissolve and even react with iron to produce cementite. That's how iron becomes steel.
And slag itself results in a metal loss. You can't drain it off and not waste some of the material you're recovering.
Basically there's no such thing as 100% recovery of recycled material in an industrial setting. You can do it in the lab at astronomical costs, sure, but your local metalworks are not capable of that. But that doesn't mean we should stop recycling.
fair enough
were 99% binding energy anyway