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Bessemer, Göransson and Mushet

Author: Ernest F. Lange

Sir Henry Bessemer is generally honoured as the inventor of the Bessemer steelmaking process, i.e., making steel from pig iron by blowing air through it in a converter. The Bessemer process quickly became a great commercial success and it brought great wealth to its inventor, who held a quite generally worded patent on the method. It is less well-known, that the original process, as invented by Bessemer, shortly after its introduction proved to be rather less than perfect. Most of the steel blown in the earliest converters was far too wild. In other words, over-oxidised. Useless for most purposes. Also, when pig iron rich in phosphorus was blown, the resulting steel was brittle. Again, useless!

The solution to these serious problems was largely due to the work of two other men: R.F. Mushet and G.F. Göransson. Mushet pioneered the addition of Spiegeleisen (rich in manganese) which deoxidised the wild steel effectively. And Göransson determined that the Bessemer method worked well for pig iron with only small amounts of phosphorus: Swedish iron being very well suited. He also discovered that - contrary to Bessemer's own ideas - the blast had to be low pressure, large volume instead of high pressure. This ensured a much hotter and therefore more homogeneous molten steel.