Today you’ll get to know the definition, applications, properties, composition, and types of pig iron merchant. Pig iron is a solid form of hot metal, obtained from iron ore or scrap recycling, and it is processed with a blast furnace or an electric arc furnace. Pig iron is used as a raw material for iron steel making and most of this material was imported.
Read more: Raw materials used in making Iron and steel
Contents
Applications of pig iron
The applications of pig iron in an electric arc furnace are for steelmaking. High-purity pig iron is used in foundries for producing ductile iron castings. Pig iron is also used in foundry pig iron in grey iron castings.
Properties of pig iron
Pig iron is also known as crude iron. It is obtained from a smelting furnace in the form of oblong blocks and has a very high carbon content of 3.5 – 4.5 as it contains 90% of iron. It is produced by smelting iron ore with high-carbon fuel and reductants such as coke usually with limestone which serves flux. Other materials like anthracite and charcoal are used as fuel.
Read more: List of best soldering irons
The term ‘pig iron’ derives from the old manner of dealing with molten iron. It was run off direct from the furnace into, open channels which feed into numerous short channels on either side, bearing a faint semblance to a sow suckling iron piglets. Pig iron was broken off from the sow when solid. A small amount of cold iron is still known as pig iron today. The term ‘hot metal’ is used to denote molten iron.
Read more: Understanding wrought iron
Composition of Pig iron
Pig iron contains about 90-95% of elemental iron together with several other elements mainly carbon, silicon, phosphorus, manganese, and sulfur – in varying proportions depending on the compositions of the raw materials and the mode of an operating blast furnace.
Pigs may hold from 3.0 – 4.5% of carbon, 0.5 – 4.0% of silicon, 0.025 – 2.5% phosphorus, 0.15 – 2.15% manganese, and up to 0.2% sulfur. The composition required for steel making differs from that required for use in foundries to make iron castings.
Merchant pig iron
Merchant pigs are cold pig iron cast ingots. It’s then sold to third parties as feedstock for steel and ferrous casting industries. It is produced by the dedicated merchant plant (all production is sold to external customers), an integrated steel mill with iron that is surplus to their internal requirements and cast into ingots, and sold to the merchant market.
Read more: Different types of metals and their classifications
Types of merchant pig iron
Merchant pigs are basically of three main types:
1. Basic: it is mainly used in electric arc steelmaking
2. Foundry: it is known as hematite pig iron, used mainly in manufacturing grey iron castings in cupola furnaces.
3. High purity: it is known as nodular pig iron, and is used for manufacturing ductile. High-purity pig iron is also called spheroidal graphite – SG iron castings.
Read more: Everything you need to know about cast iron
That is all for this article, where the definition, applications, properties, composition, and types of pig iron merchants are explained. I hope you got enough from the reading, if so, kindly share it with other students. Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Leave a Reply