Coke (fuel)

Coke is a porous, carbon-rich solid produced by heating coal without oxygen. It supplies heat and reducing carbon in blast-furnace ironmaking.

Coke oven: An industrial furnace that heats coal without oxygen to produce coke and volatile by-products. It creates coke by driving off coal’s volatile matter while leaving a strong carbon-rich solid.
Coal: A combustible sedimentary rock formed from ancient plant matter and composed mainly of carbon-rich organic material. Coal is the feedstock whose properties determine the yield and quality of coke.
Ironmaking: The production of metallic iron from iron-bearing ores or other iron-rich materials. Coke’s principal industrial role is supplying carbon and heat for primary iron production.
Abraham Darby I: An English ironmaster who pioneered the use of coke to smelt iron at Coalbrookdale in the early eighteenth century. His successful coke smelting helped reduce ironmaking’s dependence on charcoal.
Steelmaking: The industrial production of steel by refining iron or melting and processing recycled steel. Most primary steel has historically depended on coke-based blast-furnace ironmaking.
Carbonization: The conversion of carbon-containing material into carbon-rich solid by heating, often without oxygen. Coke production is coal carbonization at industrial scale.
Coal rank: A measure of coal’s degree of geological maturation, from low-rank lignite to high-rank anthracite. Rank influences how coal softens, fuses, and resolidifies during coking.
Pig iron: A high-carbon form of iron produced by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. It is the molten iron product made in the coke-fueled blast furnace.
Coalbrookdale: An industrial site in Shropshire, England, associated with early coke-smelted iron production. It became the setting for Darby’s influential experiments in coke-fueled ironmaking.
Coke oven gas: A combustible gas mixture recovered during coal carbonization in coke ovens. Recovering this by-product provides fuel and chemicals alongside solid coke.

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