This book presents the fundamentals of iron and steel making, including the physical chemistry, thermodynamics and key concepts, while also discussing associated problems and solutions. It guides the reader through the production process from start to finish, covers the raw materials, and addresses the types of processes and reactions involved in both conventional and alternative methods. Though primarily intended as a textbook for students of metallurgical engineering, the book will also prove a useful reference for professionals and researchers working in this area.

Steel is a critical material in our societies and will remain an important one for a long time into the future. In the last two decades, the world steel industry has gone through drastic changes and this is predicted to continue in the future. The Asian countries (e.g. China, India) have been dominant in the production of steel creating global over-capacity, while the steel industry in the developed countries have made tremendous efforts to reinforce its global leadership in process technology and product development, and remain sustainable and competitive. The global steel industry is also facing various grand challenges in strict environmental regulation, new energy and materials sources, and ever-increasing customer requirements for high quality steel products, which has been addressed accordingly by the global iron and steel community. This Special Issue, “Ironmaking and Steelmaking”, released by the journal Metals, published 33 high quality articles from the international iron and steel community, covering the state-of-the-art of the ironmaking and steelmaking processes. This includes fundamental understanding, experimental investigation, pilot plant trials, industrial applications and big data utilization in the improvement and optimization of existing processes, and research and development in transformative technologies. It is hoped that the creation of this special issue as a scientific platform will help drive the iron and steel community to build a sustainable steel industry.

This textbook explores the production of pig iron, covering the first part of the steel production process, known as ironmaking. Divided into seven chapters, it discusses the following topics: raw materials for steel production (coking coal, iron ore, slag-forming agents and fluxes, scrap, ferroalloys and pre-reduced materials), the sintering process (used to prepare the burden for the blast furnace), the pelletizing process (used to agglomerate the fine iron ores), the production of coke (the main reductant in the ironmaking process), the production of iron by reduction with gas (an alternative to the blast furnace) and the production of pig iron in the blast furnace (which is used in more than 65% of steel production worldwide). Specially conceived for graduate and undergraduate courses, this book is based on more than 30 years of teaching experience in courses for undergraduates, graduates (master and Ph.D.) and industry professionals (technicians). It explores the recent trends in the iron- and steelmaking process (which might used in the future production of steel), and features 55 worked exercises and real-world problems to complement of the theoretical sections of the text.

Comprehensive in its scope and directly applicable to daily waste management problems of specific industries, Waste Treatment in the Metal Manufacturing, Forming, Coating, and Finishing Industries covers hazardous industrial waste treatment, renovation, and reuse in the metal manufacturing, forming, coating, enameling, and finishing industries. It