Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, is produced in a two-stage process. First, the raw material—is smelted, producing molten iron. In the second stage, iron is converted into steel by removing impurities such as sulfur, phosphorus and excess carbon and adding alloying elements such as manganese, nickel, chromium and vanadium. The molten steel is then continuously cast, and cut to the prescribed length. These castings are then rolled to make a variety of steel products.
Green Steel
This is the era of eco- consciousness. It is the prerogative of the developed world to re-cycle whatever is re-useable. Some companies claim in their promotions that steel made from ore is of superior quality and that made from scrap is not. This is unscientific, and puts the logic of metallurgy on its head. Like most manufactured goods, steel has too many variables involved in its production. Like raw material. Some plants use refined iron while some others use scrap. The question basically is what kind of scrap one uses. Companies can opt for homogenous scrap to produce better quality steel. Like automobile shredded scrap, which is counted as one of the best scrap material, since the auto-mobile industry uses only- Steel is a key component of car parts and household appliances, and recycled steel has the same strength as new steel.
- Recycling steel prevents the need to mine additional iron and coal.
- Producing new steel from virgin materials requires more non-renewable energy than steel made from recycled steel.
- Because steel is a metal, it can be easily separated from other recyclables.
- Steel recycling saves landfill space as well as provides a scrap resource to the steel industry.
- Unlike other materials (e.g. paper, glass), steel does not need to be separated by color or size before it is recycled; it can all be melted down.
