Recent progress in the metallurgy of copper

✍ Scribed by Heinrich O. Hofman

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1916
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 834 KB
• Volume: 181
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(16)90117-0

✦ Synopsis

THE aim of all smelting of sulphide copper ore is to collect the copper in matte which contains usually 40 to 45 per cent. Cu, 35 to 3 ° per cent. Fe, and 25 per cent. S, and the missing constituents in a slag, a mixture of silicates of Jr.on, lime, etc., low enough in Cu to form a waste product. The iron and sulphur of the matte are separated from the copper .by the converter process. This furnishes a crude copper and slag which is too rich in copper to be discarded, and goes back into the ore-smelting; the crude copper is subjected to a fire-refining operation which gives it the mechanical properties demanded by the metal industries.

In the treatment of my subject I intend to cover the progress which has been made mainly during the last ten years in I. The smelting of sulphide copper ore in the blast furnace.

2. The smelting of sulphide copper ore in the reverberatory furnace.

3. The conversion of copper matte into crude metallic copper. 4. The fire-refining of crude copper to the market product.

II. SMELTING SULPHIDE COPPER ORE IN THE BLAST FURNACE.