Since we talked in class today about ancient Japanese steel making, I though I'd post on the modern process. In a nutshell, iron ore (mostly iron oxides like Fe2O3) is reduced with carbon to make 'pig iron,' impurities are removed from the pig iron by oxidation with O2 (wait: didn't we just reduce the iron to get rid of oxygen...different conditions...), and then adddition of additional carbon to acheive the desired iron/carbon ratio. Modern steelmaking began in 1858 with the Bessemer process which used air to provide the oxygen. Starting in the 1950's pure oxygen has been used instead. A nice description is given at http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/iron.html.
Posted by Michael Fuson
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