Author(s)

John W. Halloran

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

Ferrous iron oxides, present in abundant minerals such as olivines, can be oxidized to ferric iron oxide to produce more energy per unit oxygen than carbon and hydrogen. These “geofuels” are essentially inexhaustible. Energy might be extracted from geofuels by using the ferrous iron oxide to reduce fluids for use in a fuel cell. Water can be reduced by geofuels, producing hydrogen fuel. Ferrous iron oxide containing rocks are abundant, but diluted with inert oxides. Exploiting them requires new technologies to extract the energy and handle the oxidized mineral residues.

Solid Fuel, Geofuel, Olivine

Halloran, J. (2015) A Very Solid Fuel: Ferrous Iron Oxide as a Geochemical Energy Source. Natural Resources, 6, 115-122. doi: 10.4236/nr.2015.62010.