[Terrapreta] USING MICROWAVE OVEN DIY

[Benjamin Domingo Bof]

New methods, new alloys, new materials are shaping the futureBy RICK BARRETT
rbarrett at journalsentinel.comWith parts from microwave ovens bought at a discount store, Jim Hwang is trying to change the steel industry.
   Manufacturing    
 Photo/Courtesy of Michigan Technological University
 Jim Hwang (left) holds a crucible with raw materials � iron ore and coal � that he and research leader Xiaodi Huang smelt into 

    
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Hwang, an engineering professor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, has built a small iron ore smelter that's about six times faster than a conventional blast furnace at reducing iron oxide to iron, and then making steel.
   In his laboratory, Hwang can produce steel in minutes, when normally it would take hours. His goal is to build a larger microwave smelter that can create a ton of steel in about an hour, at half the normal cost.
  "We knew that microwaves were good at heating things, and steel is made by heat as well," Hwang said. "So we tried it, and it worked."
  Hwang's research is an example of innovation that could change the steel mill industry. Steelmakers say such efforts are essential as their industry is pressured to cut production costs, while at the same time creating new materials that are stronger, lighter and more durable.
  "We innovate or we die," Daniel DiMicco, president and chief executive of Nucor Corp., a large steelmaker, said last week at an industry conference in Charlotte, N.C.

       
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