Use of heat and a reducing agent to extract metal from ore
Electric phosphate smelting furnace in a TVA chemical plant (1942)
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. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag and leaving the metal behind. The reducing agent is commonly a fossil fuel source of carbon, such as carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion of coke—or, in earlier times, of charcoal.[2] The oxygen in the ore binds to carbon at high temperatures as the chemical potential energy of the bonds in carbon dioxide (CO2) is lower than that of the bonds in the ore.
Sulfide ores such as those commonly used to obtain copper, zinc or lead, are roasted before smelting in order to convert the sulfides to oxides, which are more readily reduced to the metal. Roasting heats the ore in the presence of oxygen from air, oxidizing the ore and liberating the sulfur as sulfur dioxide gas.
Smelting most prominently takes place in a blast furnace to produce pig iron, which is converted into steel.
Plants for the electrolytic reduction of aluminium are referred to as aluminium smelters.
of copper smelting technologies has supplanted them. More recent furnaces exploit bath smelting, top-jetting lance smelting, flash smelting, and blast...
Look up smelt in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Smelt may refer to: Smelting, chemical process The common name of various fish: Smelt (fish), a family...
anodes have a specific situation in aluminium smelting and depending on the type of anode, aluminium smelting is divided in two different technologies; “Soderberg”...
Zinc smelting is the process of converting zinc concentrates (ores that contain zinc) into pure zinc. Zinc smelting has historically been more difficult...
New York Smelting Company, (later on merged into the American Smelting & Refining Company, but commonly referred to as the "Durango Smelter") was a mineral...
iron smelting in India may well be placed as early as the sixteenth century BC ... by about the early decade of thirteenth century BCE iron smelting was...
contamination has been attributed to the smelting activities that pre-date the 1997 advent of newer technologies at the smelting operation. The Trail Area Health...
The pond smelt (Hypomesus olidus) is a fresh and brackish water species of smelt. It is found in the East Asia (eastern Siberia, northeast China, Korea...
these were treated by smelting. Copper was initially recovered from sulfide ores by directly smelting the ore in a furnace. The smelters were initially located...
environment negatively than ferrous slag. The smelting of copper, lead and bauxite in non-ferrous smelting, for instance, is designed to remove the iron...
ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily...
furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. Bloomeries produce a...
The smelt or European smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) is a species of fish in the family Osmeridae. The body of the European smelt is typically 15 to 18 cm (5...
Utah International Smelting and Refining Company Tooele, Utah Silver City, Utah Carondelet, St. Louis Bunker Hill Mine and Smelting Complex, Idaho Ketchum...
June 2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 800 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented in separate parts of...
rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) is a North American species of fish of the family Osmeridae. Walleye, trout, and other larger fish prey on these smelt. The...
transboundary pollution. The smelter in Trail, British Columbia was historically operated by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (COMINCO) until COMINCO...
Japanese smelt may refer to: Hypomesus nipponensis, also known as the wakasagi smelt, a native freshwater fish of Japanese lakes and estuaries. Hypomesus...
Arpachiyah in Iraq. The artifacts suggest that lead smelting may have predated copper smelting. Copper smelting is documented at sites in Anatolia and at the...
Flash smelting (Finnish: Liekkisulatus, literally "flame-smelting") is a smelting process for sulfur-containing ores including chalcopyrite. The process...
The blowing house, a traditional furnace for smelting tin The smeltmill, a traditional furnace for smelting lead Even smaller, pre-industrial bloomeries...
10 lakh tonnes. A smelting facility was established at Pantnagar in Uttarakhand. It was initially intended to serve as a smelting facility for Silver...
be smelted so that a nation's smelter production of copper can differ greatly from its mined production. See: List of countries by copper smelter production...
Tikhvin Ferroalloy Plant (Russian: ЗАО "Тихвинский ферросплавный завод" - ТФЗ) is a company based in Tikhvin, Russia. In 1994, a company was established...
The Karuruma tin smelter is a tin smelting plant in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, currently operated by the company LuNa Smelter Ltd. The plant was previously...
used to smelt lead or other metals. The older method of smelting lead on wind-blown bole hills began to be superseded by artificially-blown smelters. The...
understatement." Copper smelting took place in West Africa prior to the appearance of iron smelting in the region. Evidence for copper smelting furnaces was found...
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