Preface

During the two decades of the 21st century, the yearly steel output grew more substantially than within the entire previous lifetime of human civilization and so did the iron ore mining. Thus, despite all the progress we made in the delivery of novel nonferrous materials, we continue to live in the Iron Age with steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, being the most important engineering and construction material worldwide. Taking into account the very well-known advantages of steel, including its nearly 100% recyclability and abundance of iron-ore resources, the importance of mining and processing iron ores will not vanish for the years to come.

This book covers research areas encompassing the value chain from mining to processing of iron ore and is structured into two sections: (i) Genesis and Exploitation and (ii) Characterisation and Processing. The chapters are written by researchers from all over the world covering the multidisciplinary aspects from geological genesis to historic context of mining and exploitation of deposit and from beneficiation and sintering of iron ore to novel reduction techniques and application of advanced characterization methods.

I am very grateful to all the authors for their valuable contributions, willingness to share the research results, and expertise with the reading audience and for their hard work to make this book happen.

I sincerely thank IntechOpen for the initiative to publish this title. The readersresearchers, students, and industry professionals, now have a rare opportunity to find comprehensive, cutting-edge information covering a wide range of interdisciplinary issues in the domain of science and technology of iron ores in a single book.

> **Volodymyr Shatokha** National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine, Dnipro, Ukraine

**1**

Section 1

Genesis and Exploitation

Section 1
