The refining process, part 1: a review of its origins and development
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Published
Nov 6, 2021
Abstract
Refining was adopted early in 1791 as an initial step for the conversion of coke-smelted cast iron into wrought iron, following the failure of Cort’s puddling process to produce good iron directly from grey coke pig. Refining entailed remelting the grey iron under strongly oxidising conditions to produce a white cast iron, known as finers metal, as feedstock for puddling. This paper presents a critical review of the history of this process in bulk ironmaking in Britain, its context amongst 18th-century conversion techniques, the circumstances of its adoption and its purpose, and its development in the light of new archaeometallurgical analyses from excavation of the 1830s-1870s refinery building of the Ynysfach Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil. Dephosphorisation may have been a major function of refining and it is argued that preventing the reversion of phosphorus from slag to iron was the major reason for the necessity for multi-stage conversion techniques in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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References
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Bell I L 1884, Principles of the manufacture of iron and steel: with some notes on the economic conditions (London).
Berg T and Berg P (trans) 2001, R R Angerstein’s illustrated travel diary, 1753-1755. Industry in England and Wales from a Swedish perspective (London).
Birch A 1967, Economic history of the British iron and steel industry 1784-1879 (London).
Bonnard A H de 1804-5, ‘Mémoire sur les procédés employés en Angleterre pour le traitement du fer par le moyen de la houille’, Annales des Mines 17(100), 245-96.
Coste L and Perdonnet A 1830, Mémoires métallurgiques sur le traitement des minerais de fer, d’étain et de plomb en Angleterre (Paris).
Dellow E L (trans) 1973, Svedenstierna’s tour of Great Britain 1802-3, the travel diary of an industrial spy, Eric T Svedenstierna (Newton Abbot).
Dufrénoy A and Élie de Beaumont L 1827, Voyage métallurgique en Angleterre, 2 vols (Paris).
Dufrénoy A, Élie de Beaumont L, Coste L and Perdonnet A 1839, Voyage métallurgique en Angleterre, vol 2 and atlas, 2nd edn (Paris).
Encyclopaedia Britannica 1824, Supplement to the 4th, 5th, and 6th edition, vol 5 (London).
Evans C (ed) 1990, The letterbook of Richard Crawshay, 1799-1797 (Cardiff: Publications of the South Wales Record Society 6).
Evans C 2001, ‘Global commerce and industrial organization in an eighteenth-century Welsh enterprise: the Melingriffith Company’, Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru / Welsh History Review 20(3), 413-34.
Evans C and Rydén G 2007, Baltic iron in the Atlantic world in the eighteenth century (Leiden).
Flemings M C and Ragone D V 2009, ‘Puddling: a new look at an old process’, ISIJ International 49(12), 1960-966.
Flinn M W 1961-62, ‘William Wood and the coke-smelting process’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 34, 55–71.
Gross J (ed) 2001, The diary of Charles Wood of Cyfarthfa Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil 1766-1769 (Cardiff).
Hasenfratz J A 1812, La sidérotechnie, ou l’art de traiter les minérais de fer pour en obtenir de la fonte, du fer, ou de l’acier, vol 3 (Paris).
Hayman R 2003, The Shropshire wrought-iron industry c1600-1900: a study of technological change. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham.
Hayman R 2004, ‘The Cranage brothers and eighteenth-century forge technology’, Historical Metallurgy, 38(2), 113-120.
Herbert L 1836, The engineer’s and mechanic’s encyclopaedia, vol 1 (London).
Hyde C K 1974, ‘Technological change in the British wrought iron industry, 1750–1815: a reinterpretation’, Economic History Review 27, 190–206.
King P 2011, ‘Iron in 1790: production statistics 1787-96 and the arrival of puddling’, Historical Metallurgy 45(2), 102–133.
King P 2015, ‘Experimental ironmaking in the 1720s: Thomas Tomkyns and his contemporaries’, Historical Metallurgy 48(2), for 2014, 80-86.
Lowmoor Co 1906, A record of the origin and progress of Lowmoor Iron Works from 1791 to 1906 (Bradford).
McCormmach R 2014, The personality of Henry Cavendish – a great scientist with extraordinary peculiarities (Cham, Switzerland: Archimedes 36).
Monaghan B J, Pomfret R J and Coley K S 1998, ‘The kinetics of dephosphorization of carbon-saturated iron using an oxidizing slag’, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B 29(1), 111-118.
Mott R A 1983, Henry Cort, the great finer: creator of puddled iron, ed P Singer (London).
O’Reilly 1805, ‘Sur les procédés employés en Angleterre pour le traitement du fer par le moyen de la houille’, Annales des Arts et Manufactures 23, 113-151 and 225-54.
Overman F 1851, The manufacture of iron in all its various branches, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, PA).
Pelouze E 1827-8, L’art du maître de forges, vol 2 (Paris).
Percy J 1864, Metallurgy: volume 2, iron and steel (London).
Phillips J A 1852, A manual of metallurgy or a practical treatise of the chemistry of the metals (London).
Rees A 1811, Cyclopaedia: or a new universal dictionary of arts and sciences, Vol 19 part 1 (London).
Rees A 1814, Cyclopaedia: or a new universal dictionary of arts and sciences, Vol 29 part 1 and C of plates (London).
Rogers O 1836, Manufacture of iron, reprinted from the Library of Useful Knowledge (Philadelphia, PA).
Rogers S B 1858, An elementary treatise on iron metallurgy up to the manufacture of puddled bars (London).
Scarfe L 1995, Innocent espionage: the La Rochefoucauld brothers’ tour of England in 1785 (Woodbridge).
Scrivenor H 1841, A comprehensive history of the iron trade (London).
Truran W 1855, The iron manufacture of Great Britain theoretically and practically considered (London).
Truran W 1863, The iron manufacture of Great Britain theoretically and practically considered, 2nd edn (London).
Truran W 1865, The iron manufacture of Great Britain theoretically and practically considered, 3rd edn (London).
Ure A 1839, A dictionary of arts, manufactures and mines (London).
Ure A 1840, A dictionary of arts, manufactures and mines, 2nd edn (London).
Ure A 1843, A dictionary of arts, manufactures and mines, 3rd edn, vol 2 (London).
Wanhill R J H, Seinen P A, Rijkenberg R A and Meijers H J M 2007, ‘Investigation of a broken pile-shoe from a Roman bridge’, Historical Metallurgy 41(1), 32–39.
Williams R 2015, ‘A question of grey or white: why Abraham Darby I chose to smelt iron with coke’, Historical Metallurgy
47(2), 125-37.
Young T P and Hart R forthcoming, ‘The refining process, part 2: new data from Ynysfach Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil’, Historical Metallurgy 51.
How to Cite
Young, T., & Hart, R. (2021). The refining process, part 1: a review of its origins and development. Historical Metallurgy, 50(2), 95-108. https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/54
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How to Cite
Young, T., & Hart, R. (2021). The refining process, part 1: a review of its origins and development. Historical Metallurgy, 50(2), 95-108. https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/54