Mondo Knows Facts

The Bessemer converter blew air through molten iron

Blasting air through the melt burned out carbon in minutes instead of the days a puddling furnace needed Henry Bessemer announced the process in 1856, and it made cheap steel possible for rails, ships and beams. The catch was that only iron low in phosphorus and sulphur worked, so large deposits of British ore were unusable until the Gilchrist-Thomas process arrived in 1878. The converter's dramatic flame also gave operators a rough reading of carbon content. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Britannica

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Tags: materials, steel, industrial-revolution

The Bessemer converter blew air through molten iron: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Blasting air through the melt burned out carbon in minutes instead of the days a puddling furnace needed. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?
Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.