Arre, in theory, carbon can reduce iron oxide easily because on that Ellingham diagram line, the free energy change for that reaction dips below zero at practical furnace temperatures. But for aluminium oxide, that line stays stubbornly high—carbon just isn't strong enough to pull the oxygen away at those same heats. In my plant, we rely on that carbon-iron reaction every single day to make pig iron from haematite. But for aluminium? We'd need a far more powerful method, like electrolysis, something my little hardware shop could never manage. Watching the blast furnace roar, yaar, you see the theory made real in molten metal.
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