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Yes, this is a strange approach. Separate iron from iron oxide, which is energy intensive. That's what blast furnaces did, or do, and it's a messy and energy-intensive process. Burn iron to get heat and iron oxide. Repeat.

Are there numbers on the energy efficiency and costs of this process? This seems very strange. Batteries are above 90% round-trip efficiency now. This has to be lower.



According to the source below, aluminum has higher energy density than iron (23.5kWh/L versus 16.7kWh/L).

The entry for iron in the link below is also higher than the iron energy density reported in the parent link (11/3 kWh/L).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ente.202000...

Of course, aluminum used in this way is the classic thermite reaction; I conjecture that the iron reaction is also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite




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