You can reduce metals through vacuum pyrolysis at much lower temperatures without a reducing agent if you have a vacuum. This could make industrial scale processing of steel relatively easy on the moon.
Reducing ferric oxide to magnetite, perhaps, but I think if you tried that with ferrous oxide you'd get iron vapor coming off along with the oxygen.
An issue with any high temperature process is things start evaporating. This is part of why carbothermal reduction of aluminum oxide doesn't work: at the required temperature aluminum oxide is volatile.
(There are thermochemical water splitting technologies that exploit partially reducing transition or rare earth oxides at high temperature, then reacting them with steam at a bit lower temperature to make hydrogen. I believe cerium oxides are the current best approach there, although still not competitive.)
Isn't the primary benefit the lack of gravity?
You can reduce metals through vacuum pyrolysis at much lower temperatures without a reducing agent if you have a vacuum. This could make industrial scale processing of steel relatively easy on the moon.
Reducing ferric oxide to magnetite, perhaps, but I think if you tried that with ferrous oxide you'd get iron vapor coming off along with the oxygen.
An issue with any high temperature process is things start evaporating. This is part of why carbothermal reduction of aluminum oxide doesn't work: at the required temperature aluminum oxide is volatile.
(There are thermochemical water splitting technologies that exploit partially reducing transition or rare earth oxides at high temperature, then reacting them with steam at a bit lower temperature to make hydrogen. I believe cerium oxides are the current best approach there, although still not competitive.)
I imagine you just need the flask part, the vacuum is rather easy in space.