How is carbon obtained for steel production?
Carbon monoxide could be reacted with carbon monoxide at temperatures no higher than 700 C. to form CO2 and carbon. This happens all the time in sooty smoke stacks. 2CO ==> CO2 + C No more than half the carbon in the CO could be obtained this way. It might be possible to take the CO2 and subject it to electrolysis to get CO and oxygen then react the CO with CO again. Another way would be to heat the CO2 to 1,100 C. to partially dissociate it into CO and oxygen. 2CO2 ==> 2CO + O2 Then react the CO formed with CO again after separation of the oxygen from the CO. The problem here is that CO2 is fairly stable and only some of the molecules will dissociate at high temperatures. Another way would be to react CO and CO2 with hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst to form methane that would be decomposed (pyrolyzed) to carbon and hydrogen by passing it over hot refractories at 900 C. The carbon would be removed from the refractories by scraping, wire brushing or ultrasonics and the hydrogen re
