Blast furnace
New forge processes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddling_(metallurgy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_iron
Iron meteorites consist overwhelmingly of nickel-iron alloys. The metal taken from these meteorites is known as meteoric iron and was one of the earliest sources of usable iron available to humans.
Ironmaking described in "The Popular Encyclopedia" vol.VII, published 1894
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. Blast refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure.[1]
In a blast furnace, fuel (coke), ores, and flux (limestone) are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while a hot blast of air (sometimes with oxygen enrichment) is blown into the lower section of the furnace through a series of pipes called tuyeres, so that the chemical reactions take place throughout the furnace as the material falls downward. The end products are usually molten metal and slag phases tapped from the bottom, and waste gases (flue gas) exiting from the top of the furnace.[2] The downward flow of the ore along with the flux in contact with an upflow of hot, carbon monoxide-rich combustion gases is a countercurrent exchange and chemical reaction process.[3]
In contrast, air furnaces (such as reverberatory furnaces) are naturally aspirated, usually by the convection of hot gases in a chimney flue. According to this broad definition, bloomeries for iron, blowing houses for tin, and smelt mills for lead would be classified as blast furnaces. However, the term has usually been limited to those used for smelting iron ore to produce pig iron, an intermediate material used in the production of commercial iron and steel, and the shaft furnaces used in combination with sinter plants in base metals smelting.[4][5]
Blast furnaces are estimated to have been responsible for over 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions between 1900 and 2015, but are difficult to decarbonize.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace
Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt,[1] were made from meteoritic iron-nickel.[2] It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from iron ores in the region from Greece to India,[3][4][5] and sub-Saharan Africa.[6][7][8][page needed] The use of wrought iron (worked iron) was known by the 1st millennium BC, and its spread defined the Iron Age. During the medieval period, smiths in Europe found a way of producing wrought iron from cast iron (in this context known as pig iron) using finery forges. All these processes required charcoal as fuel.
By the 4th century BC southern India had started exporting wootz steel (with a carbon content between pig iron and wrought iron) to ancient China, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.[citation needed] Archaeological evidence of cast iron appears in 5th-century BC China.[9] New methods of producing it by carburizing bars of iron in the cementation process were devised in the 17th century. During the Industrial Revolution, new methods of producing bar iron by substituting coke for charcoal emerged, and these were later applied to produce steel, ushering in a new era of greatly increased use of iron and steel that some contemporaries described as a new "Iron Age".[10] In the late 1850s Henry Bessemer invented a new steelmaking process which involved blowing air through molten pig-iron to burn off carbon, and so producing mild steel. This and other 19th-century and later steel-making processes have displaced wrought iron. Today, wrought iron is no longer produced on a commercial scale, having been displaced by the functionally equivalent mild or low-carbon steel.[11]: 145
The largest and most modern[weasel words] underground iron ore mine in the world operates in Kiruna, Norrbotten County, Lapland.[12][unreliable source?] The mine, owned by Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB, a large Swedish mining-company, has an annual production capacity of over 26 million tonnes of iron ore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy
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