The blast furnace remains the cornerstone of high‐volume ironmaking, utilising complex thermal and chemical reactions to reduce iron oxides into molten iron. Contemporary operations place increasing ...

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The expansion of railroads and manufacturing during the late-19th century sparked strong demand for materials such as iron. However, early processes for refining crude iron ore were labor- and ...

Smelting has been around for four millennia. Rio Tinto's Hismelt says the process is in need of an upgrade. If you want to know what gets Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao bouncing out of bed for an early- ...

The process of ironmaking has relied for centuries on iron ore, an impure form of iron oxide, slowly being reduced to iron by carbon monoxide in a furnace. Whether that furnace is the charcoal fire of ...

Copper smelters from 3,000 years ago may have experimented with materials just enough to launch the Iron Age. The Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age as the refining process of iron was discovered.