Iron, Steel and Fire: The Chemistry of India's Metallurgical Heritage How ancient Indian metalworkers mastered fire, transformed ores into metals, and developed materials thatl fascinated the world. Imagine standing beside a furnace somewhere in the Indian subcontinent, many centuries ago. The air is thick with smoke. Charcoal glows inside a clay furnace. A metalworker carefully controls the flow of air using bellows. Inside, a remarkable transformation is taking place. A reddish-brown rock, seemingly ordinary and lifeless, is gradually yielding something extraordinary....Iron!! The metalworker does not know about electrons, oxidation states or crystal structures. There is no thermometer to measure the furnace temperature and no spectrometer to examine the product. Yet the process is far from random. The worker understands which ore to select, how much charcoal to use, how to maintain the fire and when to remove the metal. This knowledge has been accumulated through observation, ex...
Rajeev Singh is Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College (ARSD), University of Delhi. He is an inorganic chemist with research specialization in Material Chemistry and Organometallics. He did his Ph. D. from the University of Delhi and was a TWAS postdoctoral fellow. His other area of academic interests are into revival, communication, and awareness of knowledge of ancient Indian sciences, IKS specially Chemistry and the contributions of Indian scientists.