Iron smelting

Iron smelting extracts metallic iron from iron ore by heating it with a reducing agent, usually charcoal. Furnace design and process conditions determine whether the product is solid bloom or molten iron.

Iron ore: Rock or mineral from which iron can be extracted economically. Its iron oxides are the feedstock that smelting reduces to metal.
Iron oxide: A chemical compound of iron and oxygen, including the principal minerals in many iron ores. Smelting removes oxygen from these compounds to obtain metallic iron.
Hittites: An ancient Anatolian people whose kingdom flourished during the second millennium BCE. They are often linked to early ironworking, though claims of an exclusive smelting monopoly are unsupported.
Ironworking: The shaping and use of iron through processes such as forging, casting, and machining. Smelting supplies the metal that ironworkers refine and shape into objects.
Carbon monoxide: A colorless gas that forms when carbon burns with limited oxygen and can reduce metal oxides. It carries much of charcoal’s reducing power into the furnace charge.
Reduction (chemistry): A chemical process in which a substance gains electrons, often through loss of oxygen. Iron smelting is reduction of iron oxides by carbon-based agents.
Iron Age: A period in which iron tools and weapons became widespread in a society. The spread of iron smelting helped define this technological and archaeological period.
Wrought iron: A tough, malleable iron with very low carbon content, traditionally produced from a bloom. It is made by consolidating and refining the solid iron produced in bloomery furnaces.
Blast furnace: A tall furnace that continuously reduces iron ore with coke and produces molten iron. Its high temperatures and carbon-rich conditions produce liquid iron rather than a solid bloom.
Charcoal: A carbon-rich solid made by heating wood with limited oxygen. It supplies both heat and reducing gases in traditional iron furnaces.

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