Bessemer process

In a Bessemer converter, a blast of high-pressure air oxidizes impurities in molten iron and converts it to steel.

First cheap method of making steel, invented by Henry Bessemer in England in 1856. It has since been superseded by more efficient steel-making processes, such as the basic-oxygen process. In the Bessemer process compressed air is blown into the bottom of a converter, a furnace shaped like a cement mixer, containing molten pig iron. The excess carbon in the iron burns out, other impurities form a slag, and the furnace is emptied by tilting.