• Something interesting about steel

Steel is the most important, most fascinating, one of the oldest and most versatile raw materials we know – and for us it is also the most beautiful – and we trade in it – and it is also recyclable!

Steel refers to metallic alloys whose main component is iron. People have been working with iron for around 5000 years. The first hardenable steels were produced around 2500 years ago.

During the Second World War, the Allies bombed the Ruhr area, which was the largest steel-producing region in Europe at the time.

In the 1950s, Mao Zedong set the goal of increasing steel production in the People’s Republic of China in order to overtake England and the USA economically.

In 2021, around 1.8 billion tonnes of steel were produced worldwide, of which China’s share was 1.03 billion tonnes or 57 %.

  • From the 12th century onwards

    more powerful furnaces provided temperatures that enabled the smelting of ores.

  • 1784

    the Englishman Henry Cort laid one of the foundations for the Industrial Revolution with the invention of the puddling process for the production of wrought iron.

  • 1811

    Friedrich Krupp founded the first cast steel factory in Essen, Germany.

  • 1889

    the importance of steel steadily increased in economic and political terms. Whoever had the steel – had the power!

Steel, that is, among other things:

  • MODERN BRIDGES

  • UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS

  • CRASH BARRIERS

  • CUTLERY

  • DOOR HANDLES

  • ROLLER COASTERS

  • SPECTACLE FRAMES

  • AND MUCH MORE