Pig iron mixer
A pig iron mixer is a tiltable, refractory lined and heated container that receives the pig iron produced by the blast furnace and allows it to be used for steel production regardless of the amount of pig iron.
The job of the pig iron mixer is to keep the iron liquid and to mix the various blast furnace tapping so that an almost homogeneous type of pig iron is created. This ensures, among other things, that pig iron with a constant composition can be fed to the converter in the steelworks .
The first pig iron mixer on the European continent was used in 1890 in the Phoenix-West steelworks of the Hörder Bergwerks- und Hütten-Verein .
The capacity of common pig iron mixers is between 500 t and 2000 t of pig iron.
Transportable pig iron mixers, so-called torpedo pans , were later used to transport liquid pig iron over greater distances . The ladle furnace, on the other hand, contains (raw) steel and no pig iron.