Yes - that's correct... the impossibility of fusing the starting
elements into iron in a smelting operation comes from overcoming the
Coulomb barrier, not from the final energy balance.
There is no calcium at the start, but if there were - long before carbon
and calcium could fuse (if this were happening on a dying star) - the
carbon would fuse with another carbon or other light element. There is
no "clean" pathway to get iron alone as a desired goal, especially
without deadly radioactivity.
It's kind of absurd really. Bottom line - no mechanism exists to get
excess iron via transmutation of silica and carbon. Even if there were,
it would not add mass magically. Thus, it is likely that gross
measurement error is the likely explanation. Otherwise, this kind of
thing does not go unnoticed in a poor country. India is not exactly a
major iron producer but would be if this were not some kind of silly
anecdote. (It's a bit early for April 1).
mix...@bigpond.com wrote:
No, quite the reverse. Changing almost anything into Iron is
exothermic, because
the Iron is near the top of the binding energy curve .e.g. 44Ca+12C =>
56Fe + 19.137 MeV
