Earlier quoted context omitted.
working fluid? the same hot iron vapour is used to heat the incoming molten iron, no heat exchanger is perfect so the preheat would inevitably be a few percent short of the target temperature, the remainder is just the energy you supply to negate any heat lost through insulation (space is large, so one could use a ridiculously large insulation) not that any of this matters, since chemical methods would be much more e…
Chemical methods would be much more efficient, but they would need huge amounts of chemicals that do not exist on asteroids, so they need to be brought from elsewhere. It would be impossible to bring millions of tons of acid and of water, so if an acid would be used it would have to be regenerated, e.g. by the electrolysis of the iron-nickel-cobalt salts, which would also need a lot of energy. Designing a process tha…
instead of a heating device, a large mirror could focus sunlight on the asteroid, so that one doesn't need to do induction joule heating powered with solar panels
I'm wondering if simpler solvents for gold (like mercury) could work
Or perhaps faradayic electrodeposition of iron? like how conducting current through 2 copper electrodes in a copper sulfate bath can transport copper from one electrode to the other.
Obviously any proposals would have to be tested on Earth before porting to space...
A lot of processes commonly used on earth are not necessarily the most efficient ones, certain aspects like environmental regulations or poisonous or dangerous-for-human substances can preclude their commercial utilization, but that doesn't mean an automated refinery in space should avoid it too. Thus we can't just point at the properties of on-earth-commercial methods and assume space-based refineries would have to inherit the same issues.