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Blast furnaces differ from bloomeries and reverberatory furnaces in that in a blast furnace, flue gas is in direct contact with the ore and iron, allowing carbon monoxide to diffuse into the ore and reduce the iron oxide. The blast furnace operates as a countercurrent exchange process whereas a bloomery does not.
The Chinese are thought to have skipped the bloomery process completely, starting with the blast furnace and the finery forge to produce wrought iron; by the fifth century BC, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu had invented the blast furnace and the means to both cast iron and to decarburize the carbon-rich pig iron produced in a blast ...
A metallurgical furnace, often simply referred to as a furnace when the context is known, is an industrial furnace used to heat, melt, or otherwise process metals. Furnaces have been a central piece of equipment throughout the history of metallurgy ; processing metals with heat is even its own engineering specialty known as pyrometallurgy .
For blast furnaces, direct reduction corresponds to the reduction of oxides by the carbon in the coke. However, in practice, direct reduction only plays a significant role in the final stage of iron reduction in a blast furnace, by helping to reduce wustite (FeO) to iron. In this case, the chemical reaction can be trivially described as follows ...
The process starts by charging solid sinter and heated coke into the top of the blast furnace. Preheated air at 190 to 1,050 °C (370 to 1,920 °F) is blown into the bottom of the furnace. Zinc vapour and sulfides leave through the top and enter the condenser. Slag and lead collect at the bottom of the furnace and are tapped off regularly.
The blast furnace method is expected to survive into the 22nd century because of its efficient rate of iron production at competitive costs compared with other iron-making methods. Blast furnaces keep on improving with adaptations arising from new technologies driven by rising global demand, yet the main chemical process remains the same. But ...
The furnace was constructed circa 1847 by George W. Bryan, who named the furnace "fanny" for his wife. . Unlike earlier bloomery furnaces that produced wrought iron, the Valley Furnace was a blast furnace that produced pig iron using a bellows to induce a forced draft, using charcoal as a fuel. Ore was provided from surface mines that exploited ...
The advantage of the induction furnace is a clean, energy-efficient and well-controlled melting process, compared to most other means of metal melting. Most modern foundries use this type of furnace, and many iron foundries are replacing cupola furnaces with induction furnaces to melt cast iron, as the former emit much dust and other pollutants ...