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Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. [1] It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron , copper , silver , tin , lead and zinc .
In operation, after the bloomery is heated typically with a wood fire, shifting to burning sized charcoal, iron ore and additional charcoal are introduced through the top. Again, traditional methods vary, but normally smaller charges of ore are added at the start of the main smelting sequence, increasing to larger amounts as the smelt progresses.
Thus, smelting, or refining, is necessary to reduce the compound containing the Ag + cation into metallic Ag and to remove other byproducts to get at pure silver. [1] The process, which uses mercury amalgamation to recover silver from ore, was first used at scale by Bartolomé de Medina in Pachuca , Mexico , in 1554. [ 2 ]
The initial product of copper smelting was impure "blister" copper, which contained sulfur and oxygen. To remove these impurities, the blister copper was repeatedly melted and solidified, undergoing a cycle of oxidation and reduction. [7] In one of the previous melting stages, lead was added.
Zinc smelting is the process of converting zinc concentrates (ores that contain zinc) into pure zinc. Zinc smelting has historically been more difficult than the smelting of other metals, e.g. iron , because in contrast, zinc has a low boiling point .
Modern TLS furnace used in copper smelting during heat up. Just as other industries have trended towards electrification , electric furnaces have become prevalent in metallurgy. However, while any furnace can theoretically use an electrical heating element , process specifics mostly limit this approach to furnaces with lower power demands.
The ISASMELT process is an energy-efficient smelting process that was jointly developed from the 1970s to the 1990s by Mount Isa Mines (a subsidiary of MIM Holdings and now part of Glencore) and the Government of Australia's CSIRO. It has relatively low capital and operating costs for a smelting process.
Bloomery smelting during the Middle Ages.. Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys.The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, [1] were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. [2]