One of the two forms in which iron is obtained by smelting. Wrought iron is a soft, easily worked, fibrous metal. It usually contains less than 0.1% carbon and 1–2% slag. It is superior for most purposes to cast iron, which is hard and brittle because of its higher carbon content.
In antiquity, iron was smelted directly by heating ore in a forge with charcoal, which served both as fuel and reducing agent. While still hot, the iron-and-slag mixture was removed as a lump and worked (wrought) with a hammer to expel most of the slag and weld the iron into a coherent mass. Wrought iron began to take the place of bronze (being far more available) in Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium &BC;; its use for tools and weapons was established in China, India, and the Mediterranean by the 3rd century &BC;. Later, in Europe, wrought iron was produced indirectly from cast iron (&see; puddling process). With the invention of the Bessemer process and open-hearth process, steel supplanted wrought iron for structural purposes, and its use in the 20th century has been principally decorative.
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