Assignment 1 – Refining iron ore to steel

Iron ore
The first step to refining iron ore to steel is to acquire
the iron ore. There are many ways to mine said iron
ore, but the most common method is “Surface Mining”.
Dedicated machinery dubbed surface miners use large
cutting drums, fitted with tungsten carbide tools. The
surface miners cut shallow strips into the ground to
extract the iron ore.
1. Surface Miner
Refining the iron ore
There are two main components required to refine the iron
ore to metallic iron. One being the iron ore and the other is
coke. Coke is essentially coal with the impurities removed,
leaving only pure carbon. To produce coke, coal is heated
to around 1000-1100ºC in the absence of oxygen to remove
the compound, pyrolysis, which results in a porous
material, coke. The coke is then heated for 12 to 36 hours
in coke ovens, pushed out and quenched in water or cooled
in air.

To refine the iron ore,

both the iron ore and
coke is fed into a blast
furnace. A compound
2. Cross section of a coke oven known as flux is also
added. Flux are minerals
that collect impurities. One common mineral used as flux is
limestone. Firstly, hot air is heated to a temperature of around
1200o C, then blown into the blast furnace. This causes the
burning of the coke, releasing carbon monoxide. The carbon
monoxide chemically reacts with the iron ore thus melting the
iron ore. Towards the end of this melting process the blast
furnace is periodically tapped from the bottom, releasing the
molten iron and the impurities also known as slag. The molten 3. Blast furnace
iron is then collected into ingots called pig iron. The reasoning behind the name pig iron is
because the iron ingots look like little piglets, therefore pig iron.

Pig iron to steel

 There are several methods to take iron and
turn it into steel. One method is known as
the Bessemer steel making process. This
method was mostly used to produce low
carbon steel in a Bessemer furnace. Pig
iron is placed into the Bessemer furnace
then air heated to 1650o C is blown into
the furnace. The heat oxidizes the pig iron
removing the impurities. What left is
99.455% of pure iron, which is the
4. Bessemer Furnace required amount of iron to produce steel.
The iron is then mixed with scrap steel and
heated to allow the two metals to mix and oxidize whatever impurities left. Thus, resulting in low
carbon steel.

There is a variant of the Bessemer process named the Open-hearth process. This variant was
slower than the Bessemer process, however produced higher quantity of steel. The open-hearth
process also allowed for more finer control of the carbon levels within the furnace.

Another method to produce steel is through a basic oxygen furnace (BAF). This process is more
integrated as it takes use of the blast furnace. Directly after molten iron is formed it is thrown
back into the blast furnace along with more flux and around 30% of scrap steel. Pure oxygen is
then blown into the blast furnace, raising the temperature within the furnace to around 1700o C.
This melts the metals together and oxidizes the impurities within. The carbon content is then
reduced by 90% resulting in liquid steel. This process is a modern variant on the Bessemer
process.
References
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