Chris is a metallurgical engineer whose research focuses on production of metals and alloys, mainly steel, and corrosion. A native South African, he received bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering from the University of Pretoria, and completed a Ph.D. in corrosion at the University of Cambridge. He was an associate professor and then professor in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa, from 1991 to 2008. He served as head of that department from May 2002 to June 2008. He has been professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon since July 2008, working closely with Richard Fruehan and then Bryan Webler in the Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research. In 2024, Pistorius was named a Distinguished Member and Fellow of the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) for his significant contributions to the technical advancement of corrosion research, ironmaking and clean steel processing.
Experts from Massachusetts' Form Energy think they can clean up the dirty steelmaking process with an iron-air rust battery.
Iron has a high affinity for oxygen. Over the four billion years or so the iron has been in the Earth's crust, it has turned to iron oxide or hydroxide.