Foreign Development History Of Manganese Metal

In the early 19th century, scientists from England and France began studying the application of manganese in steel manufacturing, and obtained recognition in England in 1799 and 1808, respectively. In 1816, a German researcher discovered that manganese can enhance the hardness of iron without reducing its ductility and toughness. In 1826, Pieger of Germany manufactured manganese steel with a manganese content of 80% in a crucible. In 1840, J.M. Hitz produced metallic manganese in England. In 1841, Pasa began the industrial scale production of specular iron. In 1875, Pasa began commercial production of ferromanganese with a manganese content of 65%.
In 1860, there was a significant breakthrough in the application of manganese. Bessemer was trying his best to develop a steel making process named after him, but he encountered a problem - too much oxygen and sulfur remained in the steel. This problem was solved by Macht in 1856, who suggested that Bessemer add specular iron (manganese iron with lower manganese content) to molten steel for sulfur removal. The birth of the Bessemer method marked the evolution from the "Iron Age" of the early industrial revolution to the "Steel Age", which has epoch-making significance in the history of metallurgical development.
In 1866, William Siemens used manganese iron to control the content of phosphorus and sulfur in the steelmaking process and applied for a patent for this method. In 1868, Leclanche produced the first dry battery. After improvement, the battery used manganese dioxide as the cathode depolarization of the dry battery. The application of manganese in the battery field promoted the growth of demand for manganese dioxide. After 1875, European countries began to use blast furnaces to produce specular iron containing 15% to 30% manganese and ferromanganese containing up to 80% manganese. In 1890, the process of producing ferromanganese by electric furnace was born, and in 1898, the method of producing metallic manganese by aluminothermal method emerged. The electric furnace desilication refining method was also used to produce low-carbon ferromanganese. In 1939, electrolytic production of manganese metal began. With the continuous improvement of technology, the annual production of manganese is also increasing. According to data released by the United States Geological Survey in 2015, global manganese ore production in 2013 was approximately 18 million tons. The consumption field of manganese is also constantly expanding, in addition to being mostly used in the steel industry, it is also widely used in fields such as batteries, chemicals, electronics, agriculture, medicine, etc.