Iron Production - Techniques and History , Bo Justusson

Basic Steps Iron is produced from ore in two steps. There are many alternate methods
First ore is mixed with charcoal (or coke) that has been used throughout history
in a blastfurnace and heated to high for those two steps. When charcoal
temperature to get iron. Then this iron is was used, countries with both iron ore
further processed to reduce carbon and and large forests (like Sweden) had
slag, and to add alloys. an advantage.
Iron ore and charcoal (or coke) are
Blast- charged from the top. Air is blown in
furnace at the bottom. The coal burns to CO
which reacts with the ore and reduces
it.
In principle:
Fe3O4 + CO --> Fe + CO2
The waste rock in the ore is lighter
than iron and floats as slag. The
melted iron and slag are tapped at the
bottom.
(GIF-image 3k)

Blast-furnaces have been used since

the 12th century. Their size has
increased. Charcoal was first used,
but from around 1800 coke could be
used.
To obtain high quality iron and steel
Iron and from the the blast-furnace iron (pig
Steel iron), it is heated and treated with air
or pure oxygen. Left aBessemer
converter where air is blown in at
bottom and passes through melted
iron.

Below a Siemens-Martin
furnace where air goes into a pre-
heater (regenerator) and passes above
the melted iron and then onto another
regenerator which gets heated. The
direction of the air flow is changed
after a time to make use of the heat!
Both methods were invented around
1860.
(GIF-images 4k+4k)