SO, NOT JUST TANG AND FOODSTICKS?:

The first stage of steel production is to produce iron, which exists in the earth as iron oxides. Iron oxides are mined and then put into very high-temperature blast furnaces with coal to cause the oxygen molecules in the former to bind with the carbon in the coal. The byproduct is carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas.

Helios has discovered that sodium -- used to make table salt -- can be used instead of carbon-rich coal. The sodium molecules connect with the oxygen molecules in the iron ore to form sodium oxide. Sodium oxide can then be separated back into sodium and oxygen, and the latter is released into the air. The sodium can then be reused.

The idea of using sodium in the steel industry came out of the company's ongoing work on a lunar oxygen-producing reactor, aimed at separating oxygen from iron oxides found in lunar rock.

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