Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Copper was initially recovered from sulfide ores by directly smelting the ore in a furnace. [10] The smelters were initially located near the mines to minimize the cost of transport. This avoided the prohibitive costs of transporting the waste minerals and the sulfur and iron present in the copper-containing minerals.
Copper extraction in particular is of great interest in archeometallurgical studies since it dominated other metals in Mesopotamia from the early Chalcolithic until the mid-to-late sixth century BC. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] There is a lack of consensus among archaeometallurgists on the origin of non-ferrous extractive metallurgy.
Copper is precipitated as its sulfide as a means to purify nickel leachates. Cementation is the conversion of the metal ion to the metal by a redox reaction. A typical application involves addition of scrap iron to a solution of copper ions. Iron dissolves and copper metal is deposited. Solvent Extraction; Ion exchange; Gas reduction.
The copper is extracted from the solvent with strong aqueous acid which then deposits pure copper onto cathodes using an electrolytic procedure (electrowinning). SX/EW processing is best known for its use by the copper industry, where it accounts for 20% of worldwide production, but the technology is also successfully applied to a wide range of ...
Copper slag is created during the copper smelting process. Around 4.5 million tons of copper slag is produced each year. Although copper slag is used in grit blasting and landfilling, only 15 to 20% of it is being used as of 2015. Since this is a heavily wasted material, finding ways to use it in different industries can reduce overall waste.
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.
A solution containing copper sulfide would be collected in a basin, then precipitated in a process called cementation, resulting in metallic copper. [4] Heap leaching, in this natural chemical-free form, was further developed to obtain different, more economically viable, types of ore.
Extractive metallurgy is a branch of metallurgical engineering wherein process and methods of extraction of metals from their natural mineral deposits are studied. The field is a materials science, covering all aspects of the types of ore, washing, concentration, separation, chemical processes and extraction of pure metal and their alloying to suit various applications, sometimes for direct ...