STEEL-MAKING.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1666, 23 June 1879, Page 3

STEEL-MAKING.

la a review on the position and prospects of the steel trade, coupled with some account of the efforts now being made in the Cleveland district to adopt the great stores of iron stone there to be found to the manufacture of Bessemer steel, the “Times” remarks that there are difficulties still to be surmounted, which it would be as unwise to under estimate as to exaggerate, before the desired end can be effectually attained. Not that it is so very impracticable to eliminate phosphorus, but that its elimination by means that will prove commercially successful has hitherto been all but impossible of attainment. Mr Crampton has obtained, by puddling impure iron at a high temperature, malleable iron practically free from sulphur and phosphorus; and Dr Siemens has accomplished the same end by heating impure iron ore directly in a rotating furnace in admixture with coal, but in both these cases the phosphorus is retained in the cinder, and to obtain pure iron or steel it has been necessary to squeeze or hammer out the cinder as perfectly as possible, while the cost of both processes has been greater than the product could bear. Mr Krupp has eliminated phosphorus by the use of solid oxides and a rotating oven ; and Mr I, L. Bell has adopted the use of molten oxides. Many experiments have been made in order to remove phosphorus by volatization, but without success. Other experimenters have endeavored to volatilize phosphorus in combination with chlorine, fluorine, and even bromine and iodine, but tire cost of such systems, even if they were entirely successful, would hinder their successful commercial application. M. Tesfle do Motay in 1809 commenced experiments at Oommines, in the Nord, to eliminate phosphorus from the pig-iron of that district, and in 1872 he obtained phosphoric steel of merchantable quality from the phosphoric pig-irons of Ougroo, Hajange, Taman's, and Bowling. In the course of experiments with De Motay’s system at Terro Noire it was proved that phosphorus may bo admitted into cast steel provided that carbon is eliminated, and that the less the carbon present the greater may bo the proportion of phosphorus allowable. It yet, however, remains to bo proved what proportion of phosphorus steel can support without losing its essential qualities of malleability and resistance. Jacobi's is a wellknown process, that succeeds in eliminating phosphorus very largely, but at a cost that forbids its general application. la Belgium, again, M E. Yelge, of Liege, has instituted a process for removing phosphorus in iron ores previous to their reduction in the blast furnace by adding to the ore chloride of sodium, keeping the combination for some time at a red heat without fusing, and then, when the gases have all been given off, adding water slightly soured with hydro chloric acid, which dissolves the phosphates. But this, again, requires a separate process, which makes it inapplicable to general use. It is now admitted by all practical men that no separate process for the dophosphorisation of iron or iron ore can ever reach the desirtd end. What is required is the attainment of that end in either of the two requisite processes of reduction or conversion—in the blast furnace or in the Bessemer No one now hopes to achieve the expulsion of phosphorus in the blast furnace, and hence it must he done, if it is to bo done at all, in the B asemer convertor. Messrs Bolckow, Vaughan, and Co., are now taking steps in the latter direction, which promise very satis factory results, by using, instead of the silicious lining hitherto employed, a basic lining that will absorb the phosphorus and leave the steel free altogether from this, the greatest enemy of the iron master. The heat generated in the Bessemer converter is so intense that it is yet a moot point whether a basic lining can bo got sufficiently refractory to stand it.; but, this accomplished, the rest of the problem, judging from what we already know, will not much longer defy the solution of 'h 'so who are now so earnestly and skilfully working to bring about such a great euttlfc