What is a smelting plant?
Description. Metal processing plants and smelters are facilities that extract various metals from ore to create more refined metal products. Metals include copper, nickel, lead, zinc, silver, cobalt, gold, cadmium, etc.
How do smelters work?
Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gasses or slag and leaving just the metal behind. The reducing agent is commonly a source of carbon such as coke, charcoal, and coal.
What are the types of smelters?
extraction and refining …are two types of smelting, reduction smelting and matte smelting.
What is a smelter factory?
A smelting plant is an industrial location where metal is extracted for raw ore. Common examples of metal smelting include tin, lead, copper, bronze, and iron. The extraction of pure aluminum is also called smelting, although the process is significantly different from that of the other ores.
What is a smelter used for?
It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag and leaving the metal base behind.
What are smelters made of?
In modern copper smelting, a reverberatory furnace is used. Concentrated ore and a flux, commonly limestone, are charged into the top, and molten matte—a compound of copper, iron, and sulfur—and slag are drawn out at the bottom.
What are smelters used for?
How are smelters heated?
Roasting the carbonate and sulfide minerals in air converts them to oxides. The oxides, in turn, are smelted into the metal. Carbon monoxide was (and is) the reducing agent of choice for smelting. It is easily produced during the heating process, and as a gas comes into intimate contact with the ore.
What is a smelter made of?
What is a smelter in mining?
Smelting narrowly defined is the firing process that induces a reaction in which the metal is reduced and separated from the gangue. It typically takes place in a furnace in involves high temperatures.
Which metals can be extracted by smelting?
Some of the metals which can be extracted by the smelting process are:
- Silver.
- Copper.
- Iron.
- Lead.
- Zinc and other base metals.
