Metallurgy in the Carboniferous- Just how much hotter are fires?
The present day atmosphere is roughly 21% oxygen. Historically high-levels might have been as much as 35%, over 66% higher. This made the carboniferous a period of giant bugs and constant devastating wild-fires. How would this affect a civilization trying to develop? In particular, how much easier would it be to construct a forge/smelter for processing iron or steel? How much hotter will a forge/smelter burn if it's being fed with 66% more oxygen?
Cast Iron melts at around 2,100F (1150C). With a very naive calculation one would think a forge able to melt Cast-Iron on Earth today might burn at over 3000F, enough to melt low-carbon steel.
(Additional Edit: I had in mind a bloomery, similar to ones made over 2,000 years ago, which involve stacks of charcoal, as well as compressed air provided by a trompe. These forges burned hot in our 21% atmosphere, hot enough so that large ones could melt pig iron. What would happen if you used a similar one in 35%?)
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/171278. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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