On the New Treatment of the Reaction between Gas-Mixture H_2O-H_2 and Molten Iron in Steel-Making

The statistical thermodynamical theory of Takeuchi on the basic reaction concerning steel-making was compared with experimental results of the equilibrium relation between molten iron and gas mixture H_2O-H_2. It was shown that oxygen- in melt did not dissolve in the form of diatomic. FeO, but atomic type and that the mutual interaction energies between gas atoms dissolved in molten iron were negligibly small compared . with kT and that the equilibrium constants were approximately proportional to 1/Tonly in a small range of temperature. The potential energies between atom pairs of Fe-O and Fe-H and the characteristic temperatures of vibration of atomic oxygen and hydrogen in molten iron were determined from the experiment. The temperature dependence of PH_2O/[O][H]^2 calculated from the above data was in a good agreement with the observation