4 ms·
Actually it's 100% the opposite. Look at your iron-carbon phase diagram: https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_9/illustr/fe_c_phase_diagram_cast_iron.
by hexane360 8y ago
Actually it's 100% the opposite.
Look at your iron-carbon phase diagram: https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_9/illustr/fe_c_phase_diagram_cast_iron.gif https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_9/illustr/fe_...
Cast iron contains a high concentration of carbon, which makes it brittle. To make steel you need a heavy oxidizer to extract the (reduced) carbon. This is usually done using a "basic oxygen furnace", which is basically injecting a high pressure, very high velocity stream of oxygen into the metal to game thermodynamics into combusting the carbon without combusting the iron.
- foobarian 8y agoWow, TIL. This has some details at "5 year old level:" https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-iron-and-steel https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-iron-an... The phase diagram is very interesting too. Very little carbon is needed to go from elemental iron to steel, looks like about 0.008%. Thanks for posting that!