436 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OP 



In the discussion of the Paper 



ON "DEPHOSPHORISING IN THE CONVERTER," 



BY J. MASSANEZ (Hoerde), Westphalia, 



DR. SIEMENS * said, that, after the speeches they had heard 

 regarding the economical conditions necessary for the basic 

 process, little remained to be said. Dr. "Wedding had pointed out 

 the importance of removing the slag before the final operation 

 took place, and he thoroughly agreed with him that that would 

 be a most important step to take. But when experimenting in 

 the open-hearth furnace with similar objects in view, he had 

 found it very difficult in practice to remove this slag thoroughly 

 from a large surface of fluid steel. The slag came away only 

 partially ; it hung about the furnace ; and although in the 

 Bessemer converter they had to deal with a smaller area than in 

 the open-hearth furnace, yet there was delay and practical in- 

 convenience in removing the slag, which was not of a nature, 

 however, to stand in the way of accomplishing the end. The two 

 causes of difficulty in the way of carrying out the process appeared 

 to be, first, the sulphur, and secondly, the silicon. Now as 

 regarded the elimination of the sulphur, as Professor Tiinner had 

 remarked they must depend chiefly upon the blast furnace, and in 

 order to accomplish such a result, in dealing with poor ironstone, 

 a difficulty arose on account of the great amount of basic material 

 that had to be added to the ore. If the ores employed contained 

 a considerable percentage of manganese, the difficulty regarding 

 the sulphur would be very much diminished ; but there remained 

 that of reducing the silicon to a very low percentage, which he 

 thought could hardly be effected with ores such as those of 

 Cleveland, which contained a large amount of silicon in their 

 composition. The use of hot blast would probably also have to 

 be very much restricted, involving an increase of fuel consumption 

 and a decrease in the output of the furnace. But he should like 

 to ask the gentlemen connected with the Rhenish Steel Works 



* Excerpt Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1880, pp. 556, 557. 



