Iron-Ore .biz
Iron Ore Information
What is Smelting?
Smelting
Iron ore consists of oxygen and iron atoms bonded together into
molecules. To convert it to metallic iron it must be smelted or sent
through a direct reduction process to remove the oxygen. Oxygen-iron
bonds are strong, and to remove the iron from the oxygen, a stronger
elemental bond must be presented to attach to the oxygen. Carbon is used
because the strength of a carbon-oxygen bond is greater than that of the
iron-oxygen bond, at high temperatures. Thus, the iron ore must be
powdered and mixed with coke, to be burnt in the smelting process.
However, it is not entirely as simple as that; carbon monoxide is the
primary ingredient of chemically stripping oxygen from iron. Thus, the
iron and carbon smelting must be kept at an oxygen deficient reduced
state to promote burning of carbon to produce CO not CO2.