Blast furnace

A tall shaft furnace that smelts iron ore into molten iron using fuel, a forced air blast, and flux. Its continuous countercurrent operation lets descending burden exchange heat and react with rising gases.

Ironmaking: The production of iron from iron-bearing materials, usually by removing oxygen from iron ore. The blast furnace is a major route for converting ore into liquid iron.
Iron ore: Naturally occurring rock or mineral deposit from which iron can be extracted economically. It provides the iron oxides that the furnace reduces.
Pig iron: A high-carbon iron product produced by smelting iron ore, traditionally cast into ingots for remelting. The furnace’s molten iron is commonly cast or transferred as pig iron.
Chinese blast furnace: An early shaft furnace used in China to produce cast iron from iron ore. Chinese ironmakers developed high-temperature shaft-furnace ironmaking centuries before its European industrial expansion.
Industrial Revolution: A period of major economic and technological transformation driven by mechanized production and new energy systems. Coke-based ironmaking supplied the metal needed for expanding machinery, railways, and construction.
Coke: A porous, carbon-rich solid made by heating coal without air. It supplies heat, generates reducing gas, and supports the burden inside the shaft.
Sintering: A process that heats fine mineral particles until they bond into larger porous pieces. Sinter is one prepared form of iron-bearing burden charged into many furnaces.
Basic oxygen steelmaking: A steelmaking process that blows oxygen into molten iron to reduce carbon and other impurities. It converts blast-furnace hot metal into steel at integrated works.
Abraham Darby I: An English ironmaster who established coke smelting of iron at Coalbrookdale in the early eighteenth century. Coke made large-scale blast-furnace ironmaking less dependent on charcoal.
Coal mining: The extraction of coal from underground or surface deposits. Coke production and furnace fuel made ironmaking a major consumer of mined coal.

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