Blast Furnace Process

Here is an  excellent video  from Mexus Education on the structure and  workings of a blast furnace, showing the process and the chemistry,  with pig iron as the product.

This video shows a modern day blast furnace, not the details, or the people, you would have seen at the Mayville iron works over 100 years ago. But while today automation and technical improvements have changed things, the blast furnace process is the same. You don't see the stoves in the video, but the hot air is coming in from the right, and I post this here as a  help, for those interested in the Mayville operation and other late 19th century operations like it.

A major change  took place in 1884 when The Northwestern Iron Company enlarged and rebuilt the Mayille blast furnace, switching from a charcoal furnace to a coke furnace using the "hot blast" process which is described in this video.  The updated furnace (the A Furnace) in Mayville  had brickwork encased by a shell made of iron, burned a mixture of charcoal and coke,  and operated with with support from  hot blast stoves which injected hot air into the furnace.  When Iron was King in Dodge County, Wisconsin, by George G. Fredrick, at page 374 (Mayville, WI, Mayville Historical Society 1993) (citing sources).  Later, they added a second furnace at the Mayville works  (the B Furnace), but that's for another post.