Products Made from Iron Ore

items made with iron ore

Products made from iron ore. Iron ore is a mineral substance heavily comprised of iron oxides, primarily hematite (Fe203) and magnetite (Fe304).

While mostly unusable in its native form, when mixed with a reductant and heated it produces metallic iron (Fe).

In the following article, I want to share some products made from iron ore that you should be on the look out for if you collect this metal as well as inform you about some other things that you should know about iron ore.




Iron ore is mined primarily for its ability to be converted into iron and utilized in virtually every community on the planet.

Mining operations exist in about 50 separate countries today with Australia and Brazil dominating the world’s main exports of Iron ore.

Iron can also be converted into steel, one of the most popular finished products of Iron ore with 98% of all iron ore mined going to its production.

Iron ore is primarily mined and refined through a process called smelting.

Smelting is a heating process in which the Iron ore is heated along with coke (charcoal) and limestone in a blast furnace.

The heating process melts the iron contained in the mixture and eliminates much of the carbon that is contained.

Using variations of this process Iron ore is also used as a base to derive pig iron, cast iron and steel.

In today’s high tech world iron is incredibly useful. So what are some products made from iron ore?

Almost 98% of all iron ore mined today is used to make steel, with most modern steel production occurring in China.

The rest is used for common iron or cast iron, a mixture of iron ore, carbon and silicon. Often these items are used in industrial applications such as:

• Steel Buildings
• Machinery (Automotive)
• Tools and Equipment
• Stainless Steel Applications
• Household Items

Steel applications, the most common products made from iron ore are diverse. Some of the types of steel are:

• Crucible Steel
• Carbon Steel
• Spring Steel
• Alloy Steel
• Stainless Steel

So, how is this relevant to applications today? Iron Ore is crucial for the manufacture of some of the most important pieces of modern and developing nations alike with applications in bridges, transportation, electronics and most hand tools.

The best part about this for you, as a scrapper, is that iron ore can be found everywhere.

New scrap location tip: Just about every community has strip malls. First, make sure that you get permission to do this.

When you see that one of the stores or many of the stores within the strip mall have recently closed, a high percentage of the time there is a huge dumpster around the back of the building.

Within that dumpster, you are likely to find a mother-load of scrap metal. Desks, shelves, racks and all kinds of scrap metal objects.

Again, you may be tempted to just rampage through the dumpster but you can not. The dumpster sits on private property.

If you are caught removing any of the scrap metal from it your bail will likely be much higher than the scraps value.

Get to know the owners of the local strip malls in your area instead of attempting something risky.

This way the owners would be able to call you before the scrap items are even cast outside.