Pig iron

:For the DC Comics superhero Pig Iron, see Peter Porkchops.

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Pig iron is raw iron, the immediate product of smelting iron ore with coke and limestone in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 4-5%, which makes it very brittle and not very useful directly as a material.

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Pig iron is typically poured directly out of the bottom of the blast furnace into pots to form ingots. The ingots are then used to produce wrought iron or steel, typically with a Bessemer converter or basic oxygen furnace, by burning off the excess carbon in a controlled fashion.

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The traditional shape of the molds used for these ingots was a branching structure, formed in sand, with many individual ingots at right angles to a central channel or runner, bearing some similarity in appearance to a litter of piglets suckling on a sow. When the metal had cooled and hardened, the smaller ingots (the pigs) were simply broken from the much thinner runner (the sow), hence the name pig iron. As pig iron is intended for remelting, the uneven size of the ingots and inclusion of a little sand was unimportant compared to the ease of casting and of handling. Modern steel mills, equipped as they are with large cranes, either cast large single ingots or transfer the molten iron to a ladle for immediate use as molten metal.

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Cast iron is made by remelting pig iron, often along with substantial quantities of scrap iron, and taking various steps to remove undesirable contaminants and adjust the carbon content.

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The Chinese were making pig iron by the later Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC). In Europe, the process did not become common until the 14th century.

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DC Comics: DC Comics is one of the largest companies in comic book and related media publishing. Today a subsidiary of Time Warner, DC is responsible for such famous characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their teammates in the Justice League. For decades, DC Comics has been one of the two largest ...

Peter Porkchops: Peter Porkchops is the name of a fictional funny animal pig who appeared in stories published by DC Comics. Peter was created by Otto Feuer, and first appeared in Leading Comics #23 in 1947....

Iron: Iron is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Fe (L.: Ferrum) and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 metal. Iron is notable for being the final element produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, and thus the heaviest element which does not require a supernova or simil...

Pig iron related Images and Photos (experimental)

Liquid Metal from the Blast Furnace Running on the Smelting-House Floor to Form Pig Iron	Pig	Pig	Iron Man
Iron Duke	Iron Gate	Iron Shiek	Iron Horse
Pig Face	Iron Man 2	Iron Maiden	Iron Monkey