Anthracite iron were their principle businesses. The Franklin Institute, in 1830, offered a gold medal to the manufacturer of the greatest quantity of anthracite iron, and Nicholas Biddle and his associates offered a prize of $5,000 to the first individual to smelt a certain quantity of iron ore within a given time, using anthracite. The Lehigh Coal & Navigation, by then an industrial giant of the times, also offered free water power and discount rates on coal and shipping to encourage the development of the process. The first key breakthrough occurred in 1828-29, when Scotsman James Beaumont Neilson patented the hot blast
Anthracite high energy per its weight and burns cleanly with little soot, making it ideal for this purpose. Its high value makes it prohibitively expensive for power plant use. Other uses include the fine particles used as filter media, and as an ingredient in charcoal briquettes. Anthracite is an authorised fuel in terms of the United Kingdom's Clean Air Act 1993, meaning that it can be used within a designated Smoke Control Area such as the central London boroughs. China today mines by far the largest share of global anthracite production, accounting for more than three-quarters of global output. Most Chinese