Cementation process

The cementation process is an obsolete technology for making steel by carburization of iron.

[3] He probably used bar iron from the Forest of Dean, where he was a partner in farming the King's ironworks in two periods.

It was so called from the Swedish port of Öregrund, north of Stockholm, in whose hinterland most of the ironworks lay.

Bars were regularly examined and when the correct condition was reached the heat was withdrawn and the pots were left until cool—usually around fourteen days.

The iron had gained a little over 1% in mass from the carbon in the charcoal, and had become heterogeneous bars of blister steel.

In the early modern period, brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, was usually produced by a cementation process in which metallic copper was heated with calamine, a zinc ore, to make calamine brass.

Cementation furnace
The Doncaster Street cementation furnace in Sheffield , England