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Liquation is a metallurgical method for separating metals from an ore or alloy. The material must be heated until one of the metals starts to melt and drain away from the other and can be collected. This method was largely used to remove lead containing silver from copper, but it can also be used to remove antimony from ore minerals, and refine ...
16th century cupellation furnaces (per Agricola). Cupellation is a refining process in metallurgy in which ores or alloyed metals are treated under very high temperatures and subjected to controlled operations to separate noble metals, like gold and silver, from base metals, like lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, antimony, or bismuth, present in the ore.
Gold parting is the separating of gold from silver (and other metallic impurities). Gold and silver are often extracted from the same ores and are chemically similar and therefore difficult to separate.
An eddy current separator (ECS) is a machine that uses a powerful magnetic field to separate non-ferrous metals from an input waste or ore stream. The device makes use of eddy currents to effect the separation. Non-ferrous metals typically separated by an ECS include aluminum, copper and die-cast metals. [1]
Unwanted metals can be removed from goods with this technique. It keeps all materials pure. [1] Recycling centres use magnetic separation often to separate components from recycling, isolate metals, and purify ores. [1] Overhead magnets, magnetic pulleys, and the magnetic drums were the methods used in the recycling industry. [1]
Some ore physical properties can not be relied on for separation, therefore chemical processes are used to separate the ores from the rock. Froth flotation, leaching, and electrowinning are the most common types of chemical separation. Froth flotation uses hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties to separate the ore from the gangue.
Some types of separation require complete purification of a certain component. An example is the production of aluminum metal from bauxite ore through electrolysis refining. In contrast, an incomplete separation process may specify an output to consist of a mixture instead of a single pure component.
Smelting produces metals from raw ore, and involves adding chemicals to the ore and heating it up to the melting point of the metal. Refining is used primarily in the petroleum industry, whereby crude oil is heated and separated into stages according to the condensation points of the various elements.