Bessemer Process

A process, developed in England about 1850 by Sir Henry Bessemer, for making steel by blowing air under pressure through molten pig iron contained in a suitable vessel, whereby a portion of the iron, most of the silicon and manganese and practically all the carbon are eliminated by oxidation. The process is obsolete but noteworthy because it was the first of the ingot steel processes and a forerunner to the modern steel manufacturing processes, using oxygen instead of air.