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There are 140 million tons of nickel-containing serpentine mines in Tuquan County, Inner Mongolia, China. There is no industrial practice in the world to extract magnesium metal from magnesium silicate minerals. Laboratory research shows that it is difficult to extract magnesium metal from serpentine. Based on our laboratory research, an industrial demonstration production line with an annual processing capacity of 21,000 tons of ore has been constructed. Especially the continuous vacuum metal magnesium reduction furnace developed by ourselves is stable and reliable, which proves its feasibility. From ore crushing, grinding, ball pressing, reduction, to metal magnesium refining and casting ingots, the entire production line is fully continuous and automated. The production process has no carbon dioxide emission, clean production, high production efficiency, and low cost, which lays the foundation for large-scale industrialization of extracting magnesium metal from serpentine.

A new method of making sodium metal from sodium sulfate is discussed. Anhydrous sodium sulfate as may be made from sodium sulfate waste solutions is reduced with aluminum metal. The reactor design to make sodium metal along with aluminum and sulfur oxides minimizing wastes is explored. Thermochemical tools are used in this development. Experiments carried out in this regard and how they fit the thermochemistry are evaluated in this paper.

At present, the global production of 45,000 tons of lithium is obtained by molten salt electrolysis using lithium chloride as a raw material. Due to the release of chlorine gas in the production process, the environment is seriously polluted and the energy consumption is high. In this paper, lithium carbonate is used as a raw material, and aluminum powder is used as a reducing agent to extract metal lithium in a vacuum reduction furnace by aluminothermic reduction. The lithium recovery rate is 85% and the purity of metal lithium reaches 99.5%. In the laboratory, a continuous vacuum lithium reduction furnace was developed. No harmful gases were released during the entire production process. It was environmentally friendly. The production of lithium by aluminothermic reduction is a very promising method. The continuous lithium vacuum reduction furnace is the key equipment of this process, which lays the foundation for future industrial application.

There are expectations that hydrogen when produced economically will act as a clean fuel. This paper analyzes the ramifications on this perception. Thermochemical computations are made to show what may happen during combustion of hydrogen and associated reactions in this analysis.

During the 1990s Powerball Industries, UT had demonstrated producing Hydrogen on demand machinery—where encapsulated sodium metal is reacted with water to release hydrogen gas under pressure. The hydrogen on demand has several applications. Here we discuss the ongoing research of making use of aluminum (recycled or newly produced) with anhydrous sodium sulfate—which will make sodium metal, sulfur oxides, and aluminum oxide. The thermodynamic analysis shows suitable physicochemical conditions for the reactions. Preliminary economics using aluminum scrap—recycled aluminum is shown.

In China’s Inner Mongolia Tuquan County, 1.4 billion tons of reserves of serpentine deposits were found. Because serpentine belongs to magnesium silicate, there is no good reducing agent to reduce magnesium. In the local there is also a large reserves of high-aluminum bituminous coal for thermal power, power plants each year produce a large number of high-aluminum fly ash. The aluminum-silicon alloys obtained from this high-aluminum fly ash as the raw material by carbothermal reduction method can reduce the magnesium from the serpentine. In this paper, first, the feasibility of producing aluminum-silicon alloys by carbothermal reduction of high-alumina fly ash was studied, the hypereutectic aluminum-silicon alloys were obtained; and then the investigation on aluminum-silicon alloy as a reducing agent to reduce of metal magnesium from serpentine was carried out. According to the previous investigation, the optimized technical process for the extraction of metal magnesium from serpentine was proposed.

Organic agriculture is using natural materials such as degrading plant matter to replenish soils. This includes use of naturally degraded plant components such as peat, humus and weathered brown coals. Another important natural organic matter which has not been applied in agriculture thus far has been the black coal, Here we show that reversing the coal formation reaction by combined hydro-oxidation principles of biochemical engineering in natural conversion methods in an accelerated fashion. The modified coal soil additive can convert arid lands into farm lands for the future to sustain the population growth. In addition, the development of this new use of black coal will revive economically deprived areas from phasing out coal in the USA and Europe. This will show how the Stored energy in coal can be made renewable in helping plant growth under the soil to facilitate above ground photosynthesis.

Anthropogenic Heat Flux (AHF) is defined as heat generated from use of non-renewable energy by humans in residential, commercial and industrial activity. State of the art Global Circulation Models (GCM) used to predict global impacts of climate change to help set related policy do not include this heat flux. AHF is considered to be a much smaller an insignificant forcing, solely based on the global mean values. Various Climate models have discussed the “Heat Island Effect” in high AHF areas. Through the use of simple climate models, it is shown that significant pockets of AHF can impact climate locally in ways significant enough to impact global climate. Inclusion of spatial AHF distribution, rather than a global mean value is important to accurate modeling either on a regional or global scale.

Free or combined sulfur has been used as both the raw material and the energy material in carrying out economical manufacture of several metals in millions of tons per year quantities over the past century. This has controlled carbon emissions in an unintentional fashion and out of necessity as the ores in many cases have been sulfides to start with. The inherent benefits of “thiometallurgy,” which uses sulfur in the extraction of metals in alleviating CO2 and water vapor-greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and its ability to provide a cost-effective energy material solution equates to sustainability of the process. Such solutions are not only applicable to existing base metal production but, as the authors will show, also are applicable to newer processes in the production of other metals and chemicals, The concept of generating “thiopower” as an alternative energy approach isalso introduced.

In today’s world of rapidly increasing alternative energy, one should realize what happens to that energy generated and dissipated. These are manmade or anthropogenic. This energy conversion is still mainly for electricity — for chemical and metallurgical processes, for heating and cooling or lighting which also creates thermal wastes or for work involving movement — thus friction and heat. This paper discusses the effect of these thermal wastes into atmosphere — with examples from unavoidable energy inefficiencies and what it can lead to in the meteorological sense of climate change. Results of heat transfer modeling are compared with present day combustion sourced thermal wastes documented by British Petroleum. Evapo-transpiration moderates the atmospheric air temperature increase. Anthropogenic warming with the population increase will continue and is a function of total energy conversions only. This warming can be distributed into ocean and earth by proper engineering. The role of energy efficiency in conversion and usage in moderating the warming re-emphasized.