PIG IRON

Packing:

• Stacked on pallets

• Bulk

 

Size:

• Approximate pig size: 175mm x 135mm x 60mm

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Weight:

• ​Approx 7.5kg

 

About Pig Iron

Pig Iron is produced from the first smelting of Iron Ore. The melt of the blast furnace is run off into rectangular moulds, traditionally in a branching structure running off a central runner with the moulds at right angles to each other. This configuration is similar to piglets suckling on a sow, hence the ingots are referred to as pigs.

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Pig Iron is either sand-cast or machine-cast. When it is sand-cast, it has sand adhering and fused into the surface giving more slag in the melting. Machine-cast Pig Iron is cast in steel forms and has a fine-grained chilled structure, with a lower melting point.

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Key Properties of Pig Iron
Pig Iron has a high Carbon content, typically 3.5% – 4.5% along with small percentages of Silicon, Sulphur, Manganese and Phosphorous. This makes it brittle and only really useful for re-smelting to make Cast Iron, Wrought Iron or, nowadays, steel.

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Uses
Pig Iron can also be used to produce Grey Iron and high purity Pig Irons can be used to produce Ductile Iron.

In modern steelmaking, Pig Iron/slag is transferred, in liquid form referred to as “hot metal”, from the bottom of the blast furnace into a steel-making vessel, typically with an electric arc furnace, induction furnace or basic Oxygen furnace by burning off the excess Carbon and adjusting the alloy composition.