<P> This process was refined in the 18th century with the introduction of Benjamin Huntsman's crucible steel - making techniques, which added an additional three hours firing time and required additional large quantities of coke . In making crucible steel, the blister steel bars were broken into pieces and melted in small crucibles, each containing 20 kg or so . This produced higher quality crucible steel but increased the cost . The Bessemer process reduced the time needed to make steel of this quality to about half an hour while requiring only the coke needed initially to melt the pig iron . The earliest Bessemer converters produced steel for £ 7 a long ton, although it initially sold for around £ 40 a ton . </P> <P> A system akin to the Bessemer process has existed since the 11th century in East Asia . Economic historian Robert Hartwell writes that the Chinese of the Song Dynasty innovated a "partial decarbonization" method of repeated forging of cast iron under a cold blast . Sinologist Joseph Needham and historian of metallurgy Theodore A. Wertime have described the method as a predecessor to the Bessemer process of making steel . This process was first described by the prolific scholar and polymath government official Shen Kuo (1031--1095) in 1075, when he visited Cizhou . Hartwell states that perhaps the earliest center where this was practiced was the great iron - production district along the Henan - Hebei border during the 11th century . </P> <P> In the 15th century the finery process, another process which shares the air - blowing principle with the Bessemer process, was developed in Europe . In 1740 Benjamin Huntsman developed the crucible technique for steel manufacture, at his workshop in the district of Handsworth in Sheffield . This process had an enormous impact on the quantity and quality of steel production, but it was unrelated to the Bessemer - type process employing decarburization . </P> <P> The Japanese may have made use of the Bessemer process, which was observed by European travelers in the 17th century . The adventurer Johan Albrecht de Mandelslo describes the process in a book published in English in 1669 . He writes, "They have, among others, particular invention for the melting of iron, without the using of fire, casting it into a tun done about on the inside without about half a foot of earth, where they keep it with continual blowing, take it out by ladles full, to give it what form they please ." According to historian Donald Wagner, Madelslo did not personally visit Japan, so his description of the process is likely derived from accounts of other Europeans who had traveled to Japan . Wagner believes that the Japanese process may have been similar to the Bessemer process, but cautions that alternative explanations are also plausible . </P>

Who invented a cheap and efficient way to make steel