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Cold blast, in ironmaking, refers to a
metallurgical furnace A metallurgical furnace, more commonly referred to as a furnace, is a device used to heat and melt metal ore to remove gangue, primarily in iron and steel production. The heat energy to fuel a furnace may be supplied directly by fuel combustion ...
where air is not preheated before being blown into the furnace. This represents the earliest stage in the development of ironmaking. Until the 1820s, the use of cold air was thought to be preferable to hot air for the production of high-quality iron; this effect was due to the reduced moisture in cool winter air. The discovery by James Beaumont Neilson in about 1825 of the beneficial effects of the
hot blast Hot blast refers to the preheating of air blown into a blast furnace or other metallurgical process. As this considerably reduced the fuel consumed, hot blast was one of the most important technologies developed during the Industrial Revolution. ...
led to the rapid obsolescence of cold blast ironworks in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...
, where hot blast was in general use by 1835. Cold blast ironworks survived longer in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, but the use of hot blast as a method of smelting iron with
anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...
was introduced in 1836, and the increasing US production of coke gradually drove out the cold blast furnaces. However, one of the last known operating cold blast
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ...
furnaces, Pleasant (formerly Eagle) Furnace, in Curtin, Pennsylvania did not close until 1921.


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* {{Iron and steel production Blast furnaces Steelmaking