ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION AND ASSESSMENT

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HBSC3203
CHEMISTRY II
JANUARY 2014
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NAMA

ANUAR BIN IBRAHIM

NO. MATRIKULASI

780405115069001

NO. KAD PENGNEALAN

780405-11-5069

NO. TELEFON

013-4653083

E-MEL

anuaribrahim36@yahoo.com

In this assessment, there are several parts that will be discussed.

1. Process to produce steel cutlery from iron ore
2. Type of waste products from iron industry and the classification into suitable type of
pollution.
3. Action that should be taken by the government to prevent/reduce pollution from iron
industry.
4. How to educate pupils to prevent/reduce pollution relating to iron industry in the future?

1) Process to produce steel cutlery from iron ore.

There are three procedures to produce steel cutlery from iron core which are extraction of
iron from iron ore, transformation to steel, and electroplating to produce good finishing cutlery.

I.

Extraction of iron from iron ore

The most important element in the extraction of iron is carbon. From Reactivity Series of

metals, carbon is included although it is non-metal. Carbon which is placed between aluminium
and zinc can displace any metal below aluminium in the Reactivity Series.

The position of carbon in the Reactivity Series

From the Reactivity Series, we can see carbon cannot be used to extract the more reactive
metals because the elements above carbon are more reactive than carbon. While the elements
below carbon in the Reactivity Series like zinc, iron, tin, lead, copper, silver, gold and platinum
can be extracted using carbon because it is more reactive than them.
Carbon can be getting from coal. Coal is cheap and there is plenty of it at present. Coke
which is made from coal by the process of heating coal in the absence of air used as one of the
raw materials besides iron ore, haematite-iron(III) oxide and limestone in the process of
extracting iron. The limestone is added to eliminate of sandy waste. The blast furnace is used to
get the iron from its ore.

Firstly, hot air is blasted into the bottom of the blast furnace. The raw materials in the
reaction are iron ore (haematite), coke, limestone and air. Therefore, as hot air is blasted in, the
coke burns in the oxygen to release energy which increases the temperature in the furnace to
2000C.

Next, the carbon dioxide, CO2 then reacts with hot carbons to form carbon monoxide.
This reaction occurs at the bottom of the furnace.

After that, carbon monoxide reduces iron in the ore to iron metal.

At the high temperature which is up to 1900oC in the furnace, the iron that is in molten
form (liquid) will sinks to the bottom of the furnace. The iron then will run off into mould. The
molten slag floats to the topmost of the iron. Then, the slag is tapped off, cooled and can be used
for making roads.

II.

Transformation to steel
A mixture of iron ore and coal is then heated in a blast furnace to produce molten iron, or

pig iron, from which steel is made. The process of heating, pounding, and quenching iron in cool
water and adding oxygen to the molten metal at high enough temperatures reduced its impurities
and the carbon content. This resulted in a purer, stronger metal: steel.
While in a basic oxygen furnace, molten iron ore is the principal raw material and is
mixed with varying quantities of steel scrap and alloys to produce different grades of steel. In an
electric arc furnace, recycled steel scrap is melted directly into new steel. About 12% of our steel
is made from recycled steel.
Another one process of making steel is to heat wrought iron which had low carbon
content in clay crucibles (or vessels) with charcoal for about ten days. This would increase the
carbon content enough to transform the iron into steel. The technique worked, but it was time
consuming, required a lot of fuel, and produced only small quantities of steel.

III.

Electroplating to produce good finishing cutlery

In electroplating process, a more expensive or attractive metal such as silver or gold is

coated onto another object to produce an attractive appearance and to make it more resistant to
corrosion. Object to be electroplated is used as the cathode while the anode must be pure plating
metal. The electrolyte used is an aqueous solution that contains plating metal ions.

In order to obtain a beautiful, smooth and even coating layer, one should clean the object
to be electroplated with sandpaper. Next, use the low concentration of electrolyte and then adjust
a small electrical current using rheostat. Lastly, turn the object to be electroplated slowly.

During the electrolysis using copper plate as the anode and cutlery such as iron spoon as
the cathode, the zinc plate dissolves and corrodes to form zinc ions.
Zn(s)

Zn2+ (aq) + 2e-

The zinc ions are then discharged at the cathode. A layer of brown zinc deposit is formed
on the iron spoon.
Zn2+ (aq) + 2e-

Zn(s)

Therefore, electroplating of iron spoon with copper is occurs. When iron spoon is used as
the anode and the zinc as cathode, no deposit is formed at the iron spoon as the anode dissolves
and corrodes. Zinc ions in the electrolyte are discharged at the cathode. Brown zinc is deposited
at the zinc plate. Hence, electroplating does not occur.
Nowadays, the steel is used in a large number of industries including automotive,
construction, household appliances and packaging.

2) Type of waste products from iron industry and the classification into suitable type of
pollution.

There are many types of waste products from iron industry. There are iron blast furnace
slag, iron blast furnace air pollution control dust/sludge, tailings, steel furnace slag, and steel
furnace air pollution control dust/sludge. Besides, the only other types of wastes generated
appear to be various types of wastewater, including cooling water, wash water, and scrubber
water.
Blast furnace slag is one of mineral processing waste that contains oxides of silicon,
aluminum, calcium, and magnesium, along with other trace elements. This blast furnace slag will
be released to the air and it will cause air pollution. There are three types of blast furnace slag:
air-cooled, granulated, and expanded. Air cooled slag comprises approximately ninety percent of
all blast furnace slag produced. The physical characteristics of the slags are in large part
determined by the methods used to cool the molten slag. In the surveys, all facilities
characterized their slags as solid, though slag is molten at the point of generation.
Iron blast furnace air pollution control dust/sludge is composed primarily of iron,
calcium, silicon, magnesium, manganese, and aluminum. It is also mineral waste product that
will pollute the air and cause air pollution.
Next is steel furnace slag. Steel slag is composed primarily of calcium silicates and
ferrites combined with fused oxides of iron, aluminum, manganese, calcium, and magnesium.
The category of this steel furnace slag is mineral processing waste. This also will give out the
product that will pollute the air and environment.
At the point of generation, the slag is in a molten form. The molten slag is air cooled and
is broken into varying sizes once processing (crushing) begins. The primary management
practice for steel slag is processing (granulating, crushing, sizing) and sale for use as aggregate,
though several facilities dispose or stockpile their steel slag.
The primary wastes from this type of operation are tailings made up of gangue in the
form of course-and fine-grained particles, and waste water slurry in the case of wet separation.
Particulate wastes from dry separation may also be slurred. Following separation of solids in a
thickener or settling pond, solids are sent to a tailings impoundment and the liquid component
can be recycled to the mill or discharged if water quality criteria are met.

Wastes from gravity concentration are tailings made up of gangue in the form of coarseand fine-grained particles and process water. This material is pumped as slurry to a tailings pond.
The solid content of the slurry varies with each operation, ranging between 30 and 60 percent.
Following separation of solids in a tailings pond, tailings water can be recycled to the mill or
discharge.
The next point is wastewater. Wastewater is generated from a number of sources during
both the iron making and the steelmaking processes. In addition to process wastewaters,
wastewater streams also are generated from non-contact operation s (i.e., cooling tower water,
cooling tower blow down) and from non-process operations including maintenance and utility
requirements. However, the primary source of wastewater from iron making is water used for the
cleaning and cooling of gases. Most plants either recirculate or recycle their cooling process
wastewater to reduce the total pollutant load discharged from their facilities.
The wastewaters from the blast furnace process contain suspended particulate matter and
cyanide, phenol, and ammonia. All of these pollutants are limited by NPDES perm it
requirements. Other wastewaters contain toxic metals (predominantly zinc) and organic
pollutants which come from the raw materials or form during the reduction process.
Many of the pollutants in the process wastewaters are the result of compounds found in
the charges and fluxes added to the furnace. In both iron and ferromanganese blast furnaces
operations, ammonia is present in the exit gases and as a result is also present in the process
wastewater. The ammonia is formed from the various nitrogen compounds that are removed
from the coke charge during blast furnace operations.
Fluoride is also present in the wastewater as a result of fluoride compounds, primarily
calcium chloride from the limestone flux. Manganese is present in wastewaters from
ferromanganese production and other elements may be present depending on the various ores
and alloys used in production. Lastly, cyanide is generated as a result of the reaction of nitrogen,
in the blast air, with carbon from the coke charge in the reducing atmosphere of the blast furnace.
This wastewater may cause water pollution as if it is release to water sources like river,
sea and others. As water pollution occurs, the sea life will dead also as the water contained
poison.

3) Action that should be taken by the government to prevent/reduce pollution from iron
industry.

There are many ways that government may take to prevent pollution from iron industry
such as advice the factory to use the recycled materials instead of to processing the raw
materials, government may ask the factory to improve the efficiency of manufacturing processes
and government may introduce better legislation and regulations for those who involve in iron
industry.
Iron industry exacts a severe and sometimes irreversible toll on public health, water and
air quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and community interests. If we hope to decrease our reliance
on this activity while meeting our current and future metal needs, we must look at getting more
of our raw materials from secondary sources-the only other terrestrial supply currently available.
In large part, the failure to use recycled materials can be attributed to the distortionary subsidies
for virgin minerals extraction, which make it cheaper to dig up new minerals than to reuse
aboveground stocks.
Recycling has a number of advantages. For example, it takes far less energy to recycle
discarded materials than to extract, process, and refine metals from ore. It takes 95% less energy
to produce aluminum from recycled materials rather than from bauxite ore. Recycling copper
takes seven times less energy than processing ore; recycled steel uses three-and-a-half times less.
Secondly is government may ask the factory to improve the efficiency of manufacturing
processes to prevent the pollution from iron industry.
The World Resources Institute is conducting research on resource and materials use.
World Resources Institute has been working to develop databases and indicators that document
the flow of materials through industrial economies. Material flows analyses track the physical
flows of natural resources through extraction, production, fabrication, use and recycling, and
final disposal, accounting for losses along the way.
The goal of the materials flow studies is to develop new thinking, new metrics, and new
management tools that will help bring about the transition to more efficient and less
environmentally-harmful patterns of material use in modern societies.
Lastly is government may introduce better legislation and regulations for those who
involve in iron industry. Better regulations and better enforcement of existing regulations are

keys to improving environmental performance in iron industry. Those who do not follow the
regulations will be charge fine.
The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) was introduced into Parliament
on 4 November 2013. The Bill gives effect to Government decisions about a further set of
reforms to the Local Government Act 2002, building on the amendments made in 2010 and
2012. The reforms are designed to encourage and enable local authorities to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of their operations and processes.
With strict regulations and legislations, the owners of the factory will take serious action
to prevent the pollution from occur. This is because they dont want to take risky to pay for fine.

4) How to educate pupils to prevent/reduce pollution relating to iron industry in the future?

In order to educate pupils to prevent or reduce pollution relating to iron industry in the
future, the teacher can tell the students about the impact or dangers of iron industry, do an
experiment with the students that relating to the iron industry to find out the true result together
and lastly give them an assignment to investigate the effect of iron industry.
To educate pupils to prevent pollution relating to iron industry in the future from occurs,
a teacher should tell the students about the impact or dangers of iron industry. Once they know
the bad impact that may occur, they will find resolution to reduce or prevent it. Moreover, they
will be more alert to the environment as the iron industry will harm the environment.
For example, teacher explain about the waste product that produced by the iron industry
and the type of pollution that may occur such as air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution
and others. By this explanation, the students get knowledge and try to understand it instinct of
they do not know nothing about that.
Besides, the teacher also may do an experiment with the students that relating to the iron
industry to find out the true result together. For example, this experiment of extraction of copper
may release a stingy smell that may affect the health of people.
By doing this experiment, students can determine that the dangers of iron industry. They
will prevent themselves to do such things that may harm themselves in the future. Some of them
may have some ideas on how to reduce the pollution that occur.
Last but not least, as a teacher, you can give them an assignment to investigate the effect
of iron industry. You actually can attract them to join by promising presents for those who can
accomplish and present the assignment well. Besides finishing the assignment, the students may
take time to read and understand the contents of article.
It is a worth work where the students can be educated easily by giving them opportunity
to explore about the impact of iron industry by selves as to accomplish their works or
assignment. While for the presentation is for determine the level of understanding of the students
about the topic.
(2528 words)

REFERENCES

Id-4 iron pdf

Chemistry spotlight references books
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/iron.html
Alias Abdullah, Faujan Ahmad, & Nur Huda Faujan. (2007). Total Pro
Ramsden, E. (2001). Key science: Chemistry (3rd ed.). Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.