Iron Ore

Iron (Fe) is one of the most abundant rock-forming

elements, constituting about 5% of the Earth's
crust. It is the fourth most abundant element after
oxygen, silicon and aluminium, and after
aluminium, the most abundant and widely
distributed metal. Iron is indispensable to modern
civilisation and people have been skilled in its use
for more than 3,000 years. However, its use only
became widespread in the 14th century, when
smelting furnaces (the forerunner of blast furnaces)
began to replace forges.
Iron ores are rocks from which metallic iron can be
economically extracted. These rocks are usually
found in the form of hematite (Fe2O3) or magnetite
(Fe3O4). About 98% of world iron ore production is
used to make iron in the form of steel.
Composition
Most iron ores mined today comprise the iron oxide
minerals hematite, Fe2O3 (70% Fe); goethite, Fe2O3s
H2O, (63% Fe); limonite, a mixture of hydrated iron

oxides (up to 60% Fe); and magnetite, Fe3O4(72%

Fe).
Where Found
Most of the world's important iron ore resources
occur in iron-rich sedimentary rocks known as
banded iron formations (BIFs) which are almost
exclusively of Precambrian age (i.e. greater than
600 million years old). BIFs occur on all continents.
In many instances they are mined as iron ores, but
most importantly they are the source rocks for
most of the large high-grade concentrations of iron
ore currently mined throughout the world.

Iron Ore

Extraction of Iron
Burdening
Exact quantities of burdening materials such as
sinter, pellets, lump ore, alloys, and coke are
transported alternately via a belt conveyor to the
blast furnace head. The materials are then charged
in layers via sluice vessels into the furnace by
means of a rotary chute.
Cowper
This supplies the blast furnace with a current of hot
air ("blast"), which initiates the chemical reaction.
The refractory checker bricks in the Cowper are
heated by the top gas produced in the blast
furnace. The blast, which reaches temperatures of

over 1300 C (regenerator), then flows through

these hot bricks. The energy for the blast heating is
thus drawn off from the blast furnace process - an
utmost environmentally-sound method.
Blast furnace
The blast furnace works according to the
counterflow principle: the stock column, made up
of ore, coke and additions, slides down towards its
conversion, while the top gases rise and heat the
stock column. At the bottom of the furnace the iron
ore is chemically reduced. The blast reacts with the
coke; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are
formed at temperatures of up to 2000 C.
The carbon monoxide removes the oxygen from
the iron ore resulting in pig iron production. Slag is
formed from the other ore components and the
additions.
Casting bay
The hot metal is filled into torpedo cars via the
blast furnace tap hole, launder lined with refractory
material, and transported to the steel plants of
Dillinger Htte and Saarstahl. The silicon content of
between 0.3 % and 0.5 % is already adjusted to
steel plant and rolling mill requirements. A modern
dust extractor prevents dust from escaping during
tapping. The slag obtained in the blast furnace
process which floats on top of the hot metal in the
launder, due to its low specific gravity, is separated

from the metal and poured into slag dumps where

it solidifies or is immediately granulated with highpressure water. The solidified slag is used as road
building material, whereas the granulated material
is supplied to the cement industry.

Raw
material

Contain Function
s

iron ore
iron
(haematit oxide
e)

a compound that contains

iron

coke

burns in air to produce heat,

and reacts to form carbon
monoxide (needed to
reduce the iron oxide)

carbon

limestone calcium helps to remove acidic

carbonat impurities from the iron by
e
reacting with them to form
molten slag
air

oxygen

allows the coke to burn, and

so produces heat and
carbon monoxide

Various Materials used in Iron Production and Their

functions

Blast Furnace
The blast furnace is a huge, steel stack lined with
refractory brick, where iron ore, coke and limestone
are dumped into the top, and preheated air is
blown into the bottom. The raw materials require 6
to 8 hours to descend to the bottom of the furnace
where they become the final product of liquid slag
and liquid iron.
How A Blast furnace works
Iron oxides can come to the blast furnace plant in
the form of raw ore, pellets or sinter. The raw ore is
removed from the earth and sized into pieces that
range from 0.5 to 1.5 inches. This ore is either
Hematite (Fe2O3) or Magnetite (Fe3O4) and the iron
content ranges from 50% to 70%. This iron rich ore
can be charged directly into a blast furnace without
any further processing.
Iron ore that contains a lower iron content
must be processed or beneficiated to increase its
iron content. This ore is crushed and ground into a
powder so the waste material called gangue can be

removed. The remaining iron-rich powder is rolled

into balls and fired in a furnace to produce strong,
marble-sized pellets that contain 60% to 65% iron.
Sinter is produced from fine raw ore, small coke,
sand-sized limestone and numerous other steel
plant waste materials that contain some iron.
These fine materials are proportioned to obtain a
desired product chemistry then mixed together.
This raw material mix is
then placed on a sintering strand, which is similar
to a steel conveyor belt, where it is ignited by gas
fired furnace and fused by the heat from the coke
fines into larger size pieces that are from 0.5 to 2.0
inches. The iron ore, pellets and sinter then
become the liquid iron produced in the blast
furnace with any of their remaining impurities
going to the liquid slag.
The final
raw material in the ironmaking process in
limestone. The limestone is removed from the
earth by blasting with explosives. It is then crushed
and screened to a size that ranges from 0.5 inch to
1.5 inch to become blast furnace flux . This flux can
be pure high calcium limestone, dolomitic
limestone containing magnesia or a blend of the
two types of limestone.
Since the limestone is melted to become the
slag which removes sulfur and other impurities, the
blast furnace operator may blend the different
stones to produce the desired slag chemistry and
create optimum slag properties such as a low

melting point and a high fluidity.

All of the raw materials
are stored in an ore field and transferred to the
stockhouse before charging. Once these materials
are charged into the furnace top, they go through
numerous chemical and physical reactions while
descending to the bottom of the furnace.
The iron ore, pellets and sinter are reduced
which simply means the oxygen in the iron oxides
is removed by a series of chemical reactions.

Production of Steel
Steel is an alloy of iron with about 1 percent
carbon. It may also contain other elements, such
as manganese. Whereas pure iron is a relatively
soft metal that rusts easily, steel can be hard,
tough, and corrosion-resistant.

Over the years various countries have excelled in

making steel. During the eighteenth century a
relatively small amount of steel was made, but
Sweden was the main producer. In the nineteenth
century Great Britain became dominant. In the
twentieth century the United States was the largest
steel producer in the world until about 1970, when
it was surpassed by the Soviet Union. At the start
of the twenty-first century, China led the world in
steel production.
Three primary installations in an integrated steel
plant are the blast furnace, the steel furnaces, and
the rolling mills. The blast furnace converts iron ore
to pig iron; the steel furnaces convert the pig iron
to steel; and the rolling mills shape the steel into
sheets, slabs, or bars.
Types of Steel
Carbon Steel. This is the most widely used kind of
steel. Its carbon content is under 2 percent and is
usually less than 1 percent. It often also contains a
little manganese.
Stainless Steel. This is the most corrosionresistant kind of steel. It normally contains at least
12 percent (and sometimes up to 30 percent)
chromium, and it usually also contains nickel. A
very popular stainless steel formulation is 18-8, 18
percent chromium and 8 percent nickel.

Alloy Steels. These contain a little carbon, and

sometimes silicon, but they mainly contain added
metals, such as manganese (hardness), nickel
(strength), molybdenum (improved wear), tungsten
(high temperature strength), chromium (corrosion
resistance), and vanadium (toughness).
Galvanized Steel. This steel is coated with zinc to
protect against corrosion. The coating is usually
done by a hot dip process.
Electroplated Steel. This steel has a coating of
another metal, usually tin, applied by the use of an
electric current. Tin-plated steel is widely used for
making cans and other containers.
Tool Steel. This is very hard steel made by
tempering (heating to a very high temperature and
then quickly cooling).
Damascus Steel. This was a very high quality
ancient steel with a beautiful wavy surface pattern
used in making sword blades. It seems to have
come mainly from India.
Wootz Steel. This was actually a European
mispronunciation of ukku, the very fine steel made
in ancient India that they called "wook.
Steel Making

Methods for manufacturing steel have evolved

significantly since industrial production began in
the late 19th century. Modern methods, however,
are still based the same premise as the Bessemer
Process, namely, how to most efficiently use
oxygen to lower the carbon content in iron.
Steel production can be broken down into six steps:
1.Ironmaking: In the first step, the raw inputs
iron ore, coke and lime are melted in a blast
furnace. The resulting molten iron - also
referred to as 'hot metal' - still contains 4-4.5%
carbon and other impurities that make it
brittle.
Primary Steelmaking: Primary steelmaking
methods differ between BOS and EAF methods.
BOS methods add recycled scrap steel to the
molten iron in a converter. At high
temperatures, oxygen is blown through the
metal, which reduces the carbon content to
between 0-1.5%. EAF methods, alternatively,
feed recycled steel scrap through use high
power electric arcs (temperatures up to
1650 C) to melt the metal and convert it to
high quality steel.
3. Secondary Steelmaking: Secondary steelmaking
involves treating the molten steel produced from

both BOS and EAF routes to adjust the steel

composition. This is done by adding or removing
certain elements and/or manipulating the
temperature and production environment.
4. Continuous Casting: In this step, the molten
steel is cast into a cooled mould causing a thin
steel shell to solidify. The shell strand is withdrawn
using guided rolls and fully cooled and solidified.
The strand is cut into desired lengths depending on
application; slabs for flat products (plate and strip),
blooms for sections (beams), billets for long
products (wires) or thin strips.
5. Primary Forming: The steel that is cast is then
formed into various shapes, often by hot rolling, a
process that eliminates cast defects and achieves
the required shape and surface quality. Hot rolled
products are divided into flat products, long
products, seamless tubes, and specialty products.
6. Manufacturing, Fabrication, and Finishing:
Finally, secondary forming techniques give the
steel its final shape and properties. These
techniques include:
shaping (e.g. cold rolling)
machining (e.g. drilling)
joining (e.g. welding)

 coating (e.g. galvanizing)

heat treatment (e.g. tempering)
surface treatment (e.g. carburizing)