Pig iron

Pig iron is a high-carbon iron product made by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. It is an intermediate material used to make steel and cast iron.

Blast furnace: A tall industrial furnace that extracts iron from ore using fuel, hot air, and chemical reduction. Pig iron forms as molten iron collects at the bottom of this furnace.
Basic oxygen steelmaking: A steelmaking process that refines molten iron by blowing oxygen through it. It removes much of pig iron's carbon and impurities to produce steel.
Carbon: A chemical element that forms a wide range of compounds and dissolves in iron to make steel and cast iron. Its high concentration distinguishes pig iron from most refined iron products.
Abraham Darby I: An English ironmaster who pioneered the use of coke to smelt iron at Coalbrookdale in the early eighteenth century. Coke-based blast-furnace ironmaking helped expand production of pig iron.
Wrought iron: A nearly carbon-free iron material shaped by working and containing fibrous slag inclusions. Unlike pig iron, it is refined, malleable, and low in carbon.
Iron ore: Naturally occurring rock or mineral from which iron can be extracted economically. Its iron oxides are reduced to produce the iron in pig iron.
Cast iron: A family of iron alloys with enough carbon to be cast readily into shapes. Pig iron can be remelted and adjusted to make cast-iron products.
Iron: A metallic chemical element with symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Pig iron is an iron-rich material whose properties are altered by carbon and impurities.
Coke smelting: The use of coke instead of charcoal as the principal blast-furnace fuel and reducing agent. It enabled larger-scale pig-iron production where timber charcoal was limited.
Sponge iron: Porous iron produced by reducing ore below its melting point. It contrasts with pig iron's molten blast-furnace origin and solidified form.

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