Raw Materials for Iron and Steel Industry in India

The raw materials required for Iron and Steel Industry in India are given below :

Iron ore: Iron ore is the most important and basic raw material of the iron and steel industry. It takes about 1.5 tonnes of iron ore to make a ton of pig-iron.

Fuels: The most important fuels are coal and coke. Modern blast-furnace use coke. To produce one ton of raw-iron, around 450 tonnes of coke is used. Many iron and steel plants even to-day use charcoal.

Water: Water is an important raw material for iron and steel industry. It is mainly used to quench coke, to cool blast furnaces, to make steam to coal furnace doors, to operate hydraulic machinery and to have sewage disposal.

Air: Air is an important raw material for iron and steel industry. Near about 4 tones of air are required to make a ton of steel.

Flux (Limestone and dolomite): Flux is used in the blast-furnace to draw impurities out of the melting ore. Limestone and dolomite combine with the extracted impurities to form slag.

Refractories: Both blast and steel furnaces are lined with refractories. Refractories are used for lining furnaces for smelting iron ore. It is also used for lining of the furnaces of locomotives, boilers and making fire bricks.

Silica or Sand is used for molding.

Water: Water is an important raw material for iron and steel industry. It is mainly used to quench coke, to cool blast furnaces, to make steam to coal furnace doors, to operate hydraulic machinery and to have sewage disposal.

Ferro-alloys: For the production of steel of different grades various non-ferrous metal aluminium, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, tin, tungsten, zinc, vanadium, etc. Ferro-alloys are used. Among all these Ferro-alloys, manganese is used widely in this industry.

Electricity: Electricity is required for the production of iron and steel industry. So Hydro-electricity or Thermal power or Atomic power is required.

Scrap: Iron scraps derived from dismantled structures of factories, plants, machineries, old vehicles, etc. are recycled and widely used in this industry.