Coke smelting of iron
Fundición de hierro con coque
- Date
- 1709 · confidence high
- Place
- Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, England
- Credited to
- Abraham Darby I
- People
- 👤 Abraham Darby I1678–1717
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
The use of coke (distilled mineral coal) instead of charcoal in the blast furnace, freeing ironmaking from the limits of the forests. It allowed cheap, high-volume cast iron.
The process took decades to spread widely, owing to issues of coke quality and sulphur content.
What it led to
- Cheap iron for steam engines, bridges and railways
- Industrial concentration in the coalfields
- The industrial revolution in ironmaking
- The Coalbrookdale iron bridge (1779)
Built on
- European blast furnacec. 1200
- Coke for malting beer
- Hydraulic bellows
Made possible
- Crucible steelc. 1740
- Franklin stove1742
- Newcomen engine cylinders
- Iron bridge
- Cort's puddling process (1784)
- Railway