The carbon content is the difference between steel and iron. Metallurgical industry is usually divided into ferrous metallurgy industry and non-ferrous metallurgical industry. Burden among multiple varieties belong to ferrous metallurgy, mainly including iron, cast iron, steel and iron alloy, etc.
Steel contains a small amount of alloy elements and impurities in
iron-carbon alloy. According to the different carbon content, steel can be divided into:
Steel - containing 0.05 ~ 2.0% C
Wrought iron - containing less than 0.05% C
Steel, produced by refining pig iron again, owns special performance such as high mechanical strength and toughness, heat resistance, corrosion resistance, wear-resisting, etc. Iron reserves in natural world is extremely abundant, accounting for 5% of the earth's crust element content, It is the fourth of the earth material. Iron, a very lively element, is easy to combine with other substances.
It is customarily said that the steel is the general term of iron and steel. There indeed remains a difference between iron and steel. Steel mainly consists of two elements, namely, iron and carbon. In general, carbon and iron can form a kind of compound called iron carbon alloy. The amount of carbon content has a great effect on the properties of the steel. After the amount of carbon content increasing to a certain extent, it will cause the qualitative change. Pure iron whose impurities are rare is composed of substance called iron atoms. The amount of carbon content is the main criteria between steel and iron. The amount of cast iron carbon content is more than 2.0%. The amount of steel carbon content is less than 2.0%. The amount of cast iron carbon content is high, and cast steel is hard and brittle, almost not plastic.
Steel owns good plasticity, moreover, steel products have application performance such as high strength, good toughness, high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, easy processing, impact resistance, etc, therefore, it is widely being made use of.
