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[[File:Masseln.jpg|thumb|200px|Pig iron in the Herrenwyk Industrial Museum History Workshop, Lübeck, Germany]]

'''Pig iron''' is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications. The traditional shape of the molds used for pig iron ingots is a branching structure formed in sand, with many individual ingots at right angles to a central channel or "runner", resembling a litter of piglets being nursed by a sow. When the metal had cooled and hardened, the smaller ingots (the "pigs") were simply broken from the runner (the "sow"), hence the name "pig iron".

== See also ==
* [[Iron Ore]]
* [[Sponge Iron]]
* [[Steel]]
* [[Wrought Iron]]

== References ==
{{wa|Pig iron}}

[[Category:Iron]]
[[Category:Stubs]]