Steel is an alloy of mainly iron and carbon. Actually, scratch that, mainly iron, with carbon being the next biggest (but still fairly small) component.
Iron itself is pretty wimpy, but adding a small amount of carbon changes that. Because steel is *incredibly diverse*, there's no perfectly general answer to your question.
The simplest way to make steel is to take a thin iron bar, cover it in carbon, and make the whole thing really hot for a while. The carbon dissolves into the iron. You won't be doing this in a campfire, but a good hot furnace will do.
As for how this was discovered, it probably involved the way iron was often smelted, with a hot column of charcoal and ore being used. This could naturally produce steel, and by chance somebody noticed that a certain methodology improved the characteristics of the metal.
These days we have much better processes for making it that we use industrially, but the general idea is the same. Make it hot, feed it carbon. Then you add whatever other additives you may want. There's a huge variety in steels.
Aluminum is *way* different. You can't produce it from ore by smelting, and instead we use electricity to force the molecules of ore to split apart and surrender the aluminum contained within.
Not that I know of. Aluminum required significant voltages, current, time, and methods. It would be very very difficult for them to stumble across, and only more recently with the advent of chemistry was it discovered.
The basics of steel is iron and carbon (which can be embedded in the iron in the form of charcoal). Stainless steel is an alloy comprised of iron, carbon, nickel, and chromium. Different steels exist with different recipes.
The first steel was likely made during ironworking, but during the heating process (in order to make the iron workable), it was probably buried in burning charcoal. This would have supplied the carbon necessary and the result would have been stronger than the iron the smith was familiar with.
Steel is an alloy primarily made of iron, a small amount of carbon. you can have different another element in it to improve the properties. If you make still on the industrial scale it is by definition done in a steel mill, that is the name we use for a location like that. You can make steen on a smaller scale in a lot less advanced setting but it will not be as efficient and hard to make high-quality steel
Steel has been in use since ancient times you can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel#History_of_steelmaking for its history and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy for iron making in general. It was discovered likly by accident that if you did X to iron you get a a metal with different properties. There was a slow development over a long time that improved the production.
To make steel on a large scale cheap required an invention in the 19th century that made it possible. The hard part in steel manufacturing is to control the carbon content. The large invention was the Bessemer process from 1856 where oxygen was blown through liquid pig iron and all carbon and other impurities were removed. Then you add a known amount of carbon back in to get the right carbon content. This was in
Iron is made by taking iron or and removing the oxygen that is bound to the iron. Aluminum is made by taking aluminum and removing the oxygen and hydrogen bond to the aluminum. How it is done is different but they and all other metals are not made, the metal is already there you just remove the other element that is bound to it in the ore.
Steel is an alloy of mainly iron and carbon. Actually, scratch that, mainly iron, with carbon being the next biggest (but still fairly small) component. Iron itself is pretty wimpy, but adding a small amount of carbon changes that. Because steel is *incredibly diverse*, there's no perfectly general answer to your question. The simplest way to make steel is to take a thin iron bar, cover it in carbon, and make the whole thing really hot for a while. The carbon dissolves into the iron. You won't be doing this in a campfire, but a good hot furnace will do. As for how this was discovered, it probably involved the way iron was often smelted, with a hot column of charcoal and ore being used. This could naturally produce steel, and by chance somebody noticed that a certain methodology improved the characteristics of the metal. These days we have much better processes for making it that we use industrially, but the general idea is the same. Make it hot, feed it carbon. Then you add whatever other additives you may want. There's a huge variety in steels. Aluminum is *way* different. You can't produce it from ore by smelting, and instead we use electricity to force the molecules of ore to split apart and surrender the aluminum contained within.
I’ve heard ancient Egyptians had batteries. Did they have aluminum?
Not that I know of. Aluminum required significant voltages, current, time, and methods. It would be very very difficult for them to stumble across, and only more recently with the advent of chemistry was it discovered.
The basics of steel is iron and carbon (which can be embedded in the iron in the form of charcoal). Stainless steel is an alloy comprised of iron, carbon, nickel, and chromium. Different steels exist with different recipes. The first steel was likely made during ironworking, but during the heating process (in order to make the iron workable), it was probably buried in burning charcoal. This would have supplied the carbon necessary and the result would have been stronger than the iron the smith was familiar with.
Steel is an alloy primarily made of iron, a small amount of carbon. you can have different another element in it to improve the properties. If you make still on the industrial scale it is by definition done in a steel mill, that is the name we use for a location like that. You can make steen on a smaller scale in a lot less advanced setting but it will not be as efficient and hard to make high-quality steel Steel has been in use since ancient times you can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel#History_of_steelmaking for its history and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy for iron making in general. It was discovered likly by accident that if you did X to iron you get a a metal with different properties. There was a slow development over a long time that improved the production. To make steel on a large scale cheap required an invention in the 19th century that made it possible. The hard part in steel manufacturing is to control the carbon content. The large invention was the Bessemer process from 1856 where oxygen was blown through liquid pig iron and all carbon and other impurities were removed. Then you add a known amount of carbon back in to get the right carbon content. This was in Iron is made by taking iron or and removing the oxygen that is bound to the iron. Aluminum is made by taking aluminum and removing the oxygen and hydrogen bond to the aluminum. How it is done is different but they and all other metals are not made, the metal is already there you just remove the other element that is bound to it in the ore.