Iron powder is an important raw material for powder metallurgy. The industrial production and application of water atomized pure iron powder began in the 1920s. At that time, electrolytic iron powder and carbonyl iron powder produced in Germany were mainly used as catalysts in the chemical industry. Production of powder metallurgy iron-based parts began in the 1930s. In 1933, Germany developed the vortex grinding method to produce iron powder. In 1936, Sweden used the reduction method to produce low-cost iron powder from magnetite on the basis of sponge iron production.

After the 1940s, molten metal atomization was used to produce iron powder in Germany, Britain, and the United States. Based on this, the production of atomized prealloy (alloy steel, superalloy, etc.) powders was rapidly promoted. China began to produce iron powder by reduction in 1958, and began to develop various alloys and alloy steel powders by atomization in the 1960s. Among the production methods of iron powder, the reduction method and the atomization method are the main production methods. The production capacity of these two methods accounts for about half of the world's total iron powder production capacity. The electrolytic method and the carbonyl method are mainly used for producing high-purity, fine-grained iron powder required for magnetic materials, and the output is small.

The reduction method uses solid or gas reducing agents (coke, charcoal, anthracite, water gas, converted natural gas, decomposed ammonia, hydrogen, etc.) to reduce iron oxides (iron concentrates, rolled steel scales, etc.) to make sponge-like iron. In each reduction method, the sponge kiln is reduced by solid carbon from the tunnel kiln to produce sponge iron, and the two-stage reduction method, which is reduced by hydrogen in a belt furnace, is the Hgans method, which accounts for an overwhelming majority in output. The process flow of this reduction method is shown in Figure. The longest tunnel kiln is 265 meters long, with an annual output of 65,000 tons of iron powder.

The main uses of iron powder are: as the raw material of powder metallurgy products, the consumption amount accounts for about 60 ~ 80% of the total consumption of iron powder; as the raw material of welding electrode, 10 ~ 70% iron powder can be added to the coating Improve the welding process of the electrode and significantly increase the welding efficiency. As a flame cutting spray, when cutting steel products, spray iron powder into the oxy-acetylene flame, which can improve the cutting performance, expand the range of cutting steel types, and improve the cutting ability. Thickness; can also be used as a reducing agent in organic chemical synthesis, copier ink carrier, etc.