Iron Ore:
About 98% of iron ore is used to make steel- one of the greatest inventions and most useful materials ever created.
While the other uses for iron ore and iron are only a very small amount of the consumption, they provide excellent examples of the ingenuity and the multitude of uses that man can create from our natural resources.
Powdered iron: used in metallurgy products; magnets; high-frequency cores; auto parts; catalyst. Radioactive iron (iron 59): in medicine; tracer element in biochemical and metallurgical research.
Iron blue: in paints, printing inks; plastics; cosmetics (eye shadow); artist colors; laundry blue; paper dyeing; fertilizer ingredient; baked enamel finishes for autos and appliances; industrial finishes. Black iron oxide: as pigment; in polishing compounds; metallurgy; medicine; magnetic inks; in ferrites for electronics industry. Major producers of iron ore include Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, and India.