First cheap method of making
steel, invented by Henry Bessemer in England in 1856. It has since been superseded by more efficient steel-making processes, such as the
basicoxygen process. In the Bessemer process compressed air is blown into the bottom of a converter, a furnace shaped like a cement mixer, containing molten pig iron. The excess carbon in the iron burns out, other impurities form a slag, and the furnace is emptied by tilting.
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