Sorry, but you seem to be ignorant of the Fundamentals despite your user id. Steel is not pure iron and never has been. Pure iron is pig iron which is rather brittle. To quote Wikimedia: "Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon with improved strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron". Steel is not a modern product. It has been known for thousands of years that smelting iron with carbon produces a product (called steel) that is not brittle like natural (pig) iron but has strength and elasticity. Modern crystallography techniques demonstrate the structure of steel as iron combined with carbon. Other elements can be introduced into the structure to provide a wide variety of properties,such as molybdenum, iridium, niobium,vanadium, nickel, chromium etc, as well as varying the amount of carbon (ever heard of high carbon steel?). The medieval Crusader knights had steel swords and knew their value, as did the Saracens who fought them. Have you heard of Damascus steel? It was produced by a guild of steel makers in the city of Damascus who had learned how to produce a superior form of steel that outperformed anything else when fashioned into a sword and so was much valued.
Removing the oxygen from the iron oxide ore is a necessary part of the process but that does not make steel. You cannot have steel without carbon.
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