Ironmaking

Ironmaking is the industrial production of metallic iron from iron-bearing ores or recycled materials. Its main modern route reduces iron oxides with carbon monoxide in a blast furnace.

Blast furnace: A tall shaft furnace that reduces iron ore with carbon monoxide and melts the resulting iron using coke combustion. This is the dominant integrated route from iron ore to hot metal.
Iron ore: Rock or mineral deposit containing iron compounds in concentrations suitable for extraction. It supplies the iron oxides that ironmaking reduces.
Bloomery: A low shaft furnace that produced solid, spongy iron by reducing ore without melting the metal. Bloomeries were an early ironmaking technology, unlike modern liquid-iron production.
Steelmaking: The production of steel by refining iron or melting iron-bearing materials and controlling their composition. Most blast-furnace iron is refined into steel.
Industrial Revolution: A period of profound economic and technological transformation, beginning in Britain in the eighteenth century. Coke-based iron production supported expanding machinery, railways, and industrial construction.
Direct reduced iron: Iron produced by reducing iron ore in the solid state, without melting it in a blast furnace. This route bypasses the blast furnace and supplies metallic iron to steelmaking.
Hematite: A red to steel-gray iron oxide mineral with the chemical formula Fe₂O₃. Hematite is a major iron ore and a common furnace feed.
Blast furnace in Europe: The development and spread of European blast furnaces that produced cast iron at scale from the Middle Ages onward. Its history tracks the shift from bloomery iron to high-volume liquid iron.
Electric arc furnace: A furnace that melts metal using electric arcs, commonly used to make steel from scrap or direct reduced iron. It can make steel without producing blast-furnace iron onsite.
Carbon dioxide emissions: The release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from natural processes and human activities. Carbon-based reduction and fuel make ironmaking a major industrial source of this gas.

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