Ferrous metallurgy

Ferrous metallurgy is the <a href="/facts/Metallurgy/1SANyxX4">metallurgy</a> of <a href="/facts/Iron/QK1JYy8E">iron</a> and its <a href="/facts/Alloy/I7w7WQWR">alloys</a>. The earliest surviving <a href="/facts/Prehistory/52D6oKM4">prehistoric</a> iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in <a href="/facts/Egypt/8Ttg0JwB">Egypt</a>, were made from <a href="/facts/Meteorite/NsmHlBlX">meteoritic</a> <a href="/facts/Iron%25E2%2580%2593nickel_alloy/dqyln0KA">iron-nickel</a>. It is not known when or where the <a href="/facts/Smelting/Ghdvhlga">smelting</a> of iron from <a href="/facts/Ore/kgc9DssX">ores</a> began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from <a href="/facts/Iron_ore/rQMEvgMh">iron ores</a> in the region from Greece to India, The use of <a href="/facts/Wrought_iron/zynpjrIv">wrought iron</a> (worked iron) was known by the 1st millennium BC, and its spread defined the <a href="/facts/Iron_Age/mpQYShI0">Iron Age</a>. During the medieval period, smiths in Europe found a way of producing wrought iron from <a href="/facts/Cast_iron/lASt55k2">cast iron</a>, in this context known as <a href="/facts/Pig_iron/bxLL2NaR">pig iron</a>, using <a href="/facts/Finery_forge/rL149zMT">finery forges</a>. All these processes required <a href="/facts/Charcoal/tpYGBHTn">charcoal</a> as <a href="/facts/Fuel/H8DIRL1j">fuel</a>.
By the 4th century BC southern India had started exporting <a href="/facts/Wootz_steel/vVsqg46c">wootz steel</a>, with a carbon content between <a href="/facts/Pig_iron/bxLL2NaR">pig iron</a> and wrought iron, to ancient China, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Archaeological evidence of <a href="/facts/Cast_iron/lASt55k2">cast iron</a> appears in 5th-century BC China. New methods of producing it by <a href="/facts/Carburizing/5WlJEbzj">carburizing</a> bars of iron in the <a href="/facts/Cementation_process/nWE1AJhA">cementation process</a> were devised in the 17th century. During the <a href="/facts/Industrial_Revolution/B6E3Fasm">Industrial Revolution</a>, new methods of producing <a href="/facts/Bar_iron/zynpjrIv">bar iron</a> by substituting <a href="/facts/Coke_(fuel)/vD8xjd0m">coke</a> for charcoal emerged, and these were later applied to produce <a href="/facts/Steel/aN6qWo4H">steel</a>, ushering in a new era of greatly increased use of iron and steel that some contemporaries described as a new "Iron Age".
In the late 1850s <a href="/facts/Henry_Bessemer/qk4H48en">Henry Bessemer</a> invented a <a href="/facts/Bessemer_process/Al0kr3a3">new steelmaking process</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Wrought_iron/zynpjrIv">wrought iron</a>. Today, wrought iron is no longer produced on a commercial scale, having been displaced by the functionally equivalent mild or low-carbon steel.: 145

Ferrous metallurgy open-in-new

Ferrous metallurgy