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Figs 6 hours ago

Could you use a centrifuge to separate the elements instead of vaporizing it?

adrian_b 4 hours ago | parent [-]

You cannot use a centrifuge to separate solid iron.

Using a centrifuge with liquid iron would create a gradient of concentration of the heavier elements dissolved in it, but that would not be enough to separate them.

All that could be done with a centrifuge with liquid iron would be to obtain an iron alloy enriched in heavy elements. However, I doubt that it would be possible to make a centrifuge for liquid iron that would have a lifetime sufficient to process quantities of the order of one million tons of iron. I do not think that until now anyone has ever tried to make a centrifuge that could work with a liquid metal at such a temperature. Most materials lose their strength at such temperatures, so the risk of breakage for the centrifuge would be extremely high, a risk that is increased by how heavy iron is.

It is also not clear if such an enrichment of the heavy elements would bring a sufficient simplification to further processing steps to make it worthwhile.

Figs 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Iron and platinum have different melting points. If you melt the alloy, then spin it to concentrate the platinum, couldn't you coax the platinum to separate out as solid clumps by adjusting the temperature?

Alternatively, there are differences in magnetic properties that could be exploited...

This isn't my field, so I'm just spitballing. I bet if you can get the cost of launch and interplanetary transit to be low enough for people to really start tinkering with asteroid mining though, someone will crack the metallurgy issues...