bessemer process

method of sample preparation

After the English inventor Sir Henry Bessemer (Charlton, Hertfordshire 1813 – London 1898).

Bessemer's father was a type founder who introduced his son to mechanics and metallurgy early on. The bessemer pear or converter dates from 1856.

It is a pear-shaped vessel, lined on the inside with refractory bricks, in which liquid pig iron is purified by means of blown air oxygen from, among other things, carbon, silicon and manganese, so that malleable iron is obtained. It is also used for the preparation of copper and nickel.

The method brought about a true revolution in the steel industry. Working time was reduced from twenty-four hours to twenty minutes, so that mass production could take place.

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