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The internal operating temperature of the water jacket furnace is lower than that of a blast furnace used to make iron, and the process does not depend upon the formation of a bosh shell, as is critical in the operation of a blast furnace making iron. Conventional blast furnaces used for smelting iron ore use a hot blast.
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.
Blast furnaces are currently rarely used in copper smelting, but modern lead smelting blast furnaces are much shorter than iron blast furnaces and are rectangular in shape. [76] Modern lead blast furnaces are constructed using water-cooled steel or copper jackets for the walls, and have no refractory linings in the side walls. [77]
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 ...
Initially, sulfur accelerates the extraction of oxygen from the iron oxide, but this effect reverses once metallic iron begins to form, significantly slowing the oxygen extraction process. [3] This unusual behavior is attributed to sulfur's strong affinity for the metallic iron that forms on the pellet surface, which inhibits the penetration of ...
Direct reduction processes can be divided roughly into two categories: gas-based and coal-based. In both cases, the objective of the process is to remove the oxygen contained in various forms of iron ore (sized ore, concentrates, pellets, mill scale, furnace dust, etc.) in order to convert the ore to metallic iron, without melting it (below 1,200 °C (2,190 °F)).
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The preferred method of iron production in Europe until the development of the puddling process in 1783–84. Cast iron development lagged in Europe because wrought iron was the desired product and the intermediate step of producing cast iron involved an expensive blast furnace and further refining of pig iron to cast iron, which then required ...