Changes

[[File:Chinese Fining and Blast Furnace.jpg|left|250px|thumbnail|Figure 2. Chinese steel production was advanced and foreshadowed modern methods.]]

White steel was already around soon after iron working developed, it took some time before mastering the technology improved. The Romans mastered using coal, rather than wood, for fuel in furnaces. This gave them a new fuel source to produce better quality iron and steel. However, this practice did not become widespread and may not have been extensively used after the Romans in Europe. New steel production techniques from China and India, which developed by the 5th century CE, did, however, spread to other areas of the Old World. This included mixing wrought and cast iron together to form a stronger weapon/tool. The so-called Bessemer method, which is a modern steel production technique and developed much later, already had a precursor developed in China by the 11th century CE (Figure 2). This included repeated cooling and reforging the steel into a stronger product. Problems of having relatively brittle iron were now effectively being solved. Previously, the quality of the iron ore affected the quality of weapons and tools. Now, new production techniques that enabled carbonized iron to be more easily made, and thus creating steel, allowed more rapid spread of better weapons and tools. In the Medieval Islamic world, blast furnaces were developed by the 10-11th centuries. These allowed more industrial production and better production of iron. A process that utilized integration of carbides, through a crucible smelting process, produced some of the strongest steel in the Medieval world. This was the so-called Damascus steel, produced in Syria, that produced some of the best quality swords and weapons of the Medieval world.<ref>For more on iron technology development in late antiquity and the Medieval period, see: Lavan, Luke, Enrico Zanini, and Alexander Sarantis. 2008. <i>Technology in Transition A.D. 300-650.</i> Leiden: BRILL.</ref>

Europe was largely behind much of the Old World in the quality of steel production in the Medieval period. Things began to change in the early 17th century. A method that cemented iron bars with carbon, the so-called cementation processes, was developed. This method was soon utilized in blast furnaces that began to produce better quality steel. Similar to what happened in much of the Old World, dependence on wood led to an eventual limitation of steel production. This created the need, similar to what was seen in China, for the use of new fuels. By the early 1700s, the use of coke was now utilized in creating steel. This removed the need for wood, as coal could now be used, a supply that was plentiful. The use of coke also gave the carbon needed to produce better quality steel.<ref>For more on the cementation process, see: Wertime, Theodore. 1961. <i>The Coming of the Ages of Steel</i>. Brill.</ref>