Until 1856 there was no steel suitable for structures such as ships, bridges, train rails, or the shafts of large machines, these pieces were built with «puddled» iron, and the use of steel was limited to clock springs, tools, and the smallest parts of machinery. The process to obtain the puddling was long, very laborious, very expensive and consumed a lot of fuel.
The Bessemer converter, patented in 1855, was the first economic process for the industrial production of steel and revolutionized the process by decreasing its cost and increasing the speed of production. The process consisted of removing carbon and other impurities from the iron by blowing very hot air through the molten iron. For this converter to be effective, the iron ore had to lack sulfur and phosphorus. This mineral, in Europe, only occurred in Sweden, underground, and in the mountains of Triano, in the open sky. The company Ibarra y Cía bought the exclusive use of this patent for its factory.
In 1865 the converter known as the Martin-Siemens process was patented, which will be the most used in our steel industry.
In 1868 Robert Mushet perfected the Bessemer process and invented the Robert converter. The Vizcaya installed these ovens, as they could not use the Bessemer.
In 1877 Thomas patented a variant of the Bessemer converter that allowed steel to be made from phosphorus-rich iron ore miners.
Excellent quality steels are after manufactured with electric arc furnaces, such as the Herault.
