Chapter 65 (1/2)

Baskets of materials are soon put into the local blast furnace. The local blast furnace is not big. Even if all the coke is put in at one time, only about three tons of hot metal can be produced.

Three tons of iron sounds like a lot, but don't forget that the proportion of iron is more than 7. These three tons of iron don't even have half a cubic meter.

But that's enough for the gaoshu tribe.

Before feeding, a lot of wood has been erected in the blast furnace. Now, without kerosene ignition, wood can only be used to ignite. As for whether the carbon contained in the wood will affect the hot metal, the stone bear has no concern at this time.

After all, it is the first time to use local blast furnace to smelt iron. As long as the molten iron can be smelted successfully, that is the biggest victory.

”Light up!” The stone bear gave a loud drink again, and then the people holding the long handle torch put the torch into the tap hole and slag hole. Soon, the gas outlet and feeding port on the top of the blast furnace began to emit thick smoke.

It took a long time for the smoke to dissipate gradually. At this time, even through the thick wall of the furnace, the surrounding people could hear the ”whirring” sound of fire in the furnace.

Eight people divided into four groups, standing in front of the four bellows, began to pull the bellows, and sprayed a continuous stream of fresh air into the furnace.

In fact, the best way to smelt iron is to spray hot air with a temperature of more than 1000 degrees into the furnace, but where is the condition to heat the air now? So, cold air is cold air. It's better to burn it for a while.

Coke is not as unburned as charcoal. When coke is burned, it not only produces extremely high temperature, but also has a very long burning time.

As the coke is ignited by the wood and releases a lot of heat, the crushed iron ore and limestone begin to react with the fresh air.

When the coke in the continuous influx of fresh air support more and more prosperous, iron ore, limestone began to melt.

Because of the limitation of the furnace, the heat can not be dissipated. The temperature in the belly of the blast furnace soon rose to more than 1500, and it continued to rise until it stabilized at about 1700, although this process took a long time.

At this temperature, the iron ore has completely melted, the pure iron contained in the iron ore becomes pure molten iron, and the impurities will react with limestone to form slag, which will float on the molten iron with the burning coke and carbon slag, and finally be released from the slag outlet.

A clansman stood on the scaffold at the top of the blast furnace and observed the changes in the furnace from a distance through the observation hole. Although the light in the furnace is very dazzling, it can be seen whether the iron ore is melting and whether the molten iron is generated.

From morning until noon, the people standing on the scaffold yelled excitedly: ”there is a lot of hot metal in the stove.”

Stone bear smile, since there is molten iron generation, it means that the iron making did not fail.

After waiting for a long time, Shi Xiong told the prepared people to let go of the refractory plate at the slag outlet.