Patent ID: 6843860

Claim:
A method of pickling high-quality steel strip consisting essentially the steps of: (a) passing high-quality hot-rolled steel strip with an austenitic, ferritic or martensitic structure through a soft annealing furnace immediately followed by a pickling line consisting essentially only of pickling and rinsing stages; (b) in at least one pickling stage of said pickling stages, initially pickling said high-quality hot-rolled steel strip with hydrochloric acid; (c) in at least one rinsing stage of said rinsing stages following step (b), rinsing said high-quality hot-rolled steel strip with nitric acid or a mixture of sulfuric acid with hydrogen peroxide or a mixture of hydrochloric acid with hydrogen peroxide; and (d) thereafter rinsing said high-quality hot-rolled steel strip with water in at least one further one of said rinsing stages.