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When do you use hydrogen to reduce an oxide?

I know that metals less reactive than carbon can be displaced from their ores by carbon, and metals more reactive need extraction via electrolysis, but when would you use hydrogen?

Silver, gold and platinum mostly exist in their native state and copper can just be extracted with carbon (which is cheaper), so why do I see redox equations that use hydrogen? Are there specific metals that can only be extracted with hydrogen?

Reply 1

scimus63

Nothing special about using hydrogen to reduce metal ores, any metal below hydrogen can be obtained from its ore using hydrogen,

this web page might help a bit

https://www.science-revision.co.uk/metal_extraction.html