Alloys made direct from metal oxides offer more sustainable route to advanced materials

A new way to make metal alloys could drastically reduce the carbon footprint of this important class of materials. As well as eliminating carbon dioxide emissions, the new process offers a direct route to a finished alloy from mixtures of metal oxides, bypassing energy-consuming steps that are associated with traditional means of alloy production.

Alloys are typically made in a multistep process that involves extracting metals separately from their ores before mixing them in the liquid phase at high temperatures. The resulting material usually then requires further heat and mechanical treatment to form a final alloy with the desired microstructure. But this process releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and is highly energy intensive.