Lead Smelting and Refining, With Some Notes on Lead Mining
Science
Lead Smelting and Refining, With Some Notes on Lead Mining
Lead -- Metallurgy; Lead mines and mining
The process described by W. S. Bayston, of Melbourne (Australian patent
No. 2862), appears to be identical with that of Savelsberg.
Irrespective of the validity of the Savelsberg and Carmichael-Bradford
patents, and without attempting to minimize the ingenuity of their
inventors and the importance of their discoveries, it must be conceded
that the merit for the invention and introduction of lime-roasting of
galena belongs to Thomas Huntington and Ferdinand Heberlein. The former
is an American, and this is the only claim that the United States can
make to a share in this great improvement in the metallurgy of lead. It
is to be regretted, moreover, that of all the important lead-smelting
countries in the world, America has been the most backward in adopting
it.
The details of the three processes and the general results accomplished
by them have been rather fully described in a series of articles
recently published in the _Engineering and Mining Journal_. There
has been, however, comparatively little discussion as to costs; and
unfortunately the data available for analysis are extremely scanty, due
to the secrecy with which the Huntington-Heberlein process, the most
extensively exploited of the three, has been veiled. Nevertheless, I
may attempt an approximate estimation of the various details, taking
the Huntington-Heberlein process as the basis.
The ore, limestone and silica are crushed to pass a four-mesh screen.
This is about the size to which it would be necessary to crush as
preliminary to roasting in the ordinary way, wherefore the only
difference in cost is the charge for crushing the limestone and silica,
which in the aggregate may amount to one-sixth of the weight of the raw
sulphide and may consequently add 2 to 2.5c. to the cost of treating
a ton of ore. The mixing of ore and fluxes may be costly or cheap,
according to the way of doing it. If done in a rational way it ought
not to cost more than 10c. per ton of ore, and may come to less. The
delivery of the ore from the mixing-house to the roasting furnaces
ought to be done entirely by mechanical means, at insignificant cost.
The Heberlein roasting furnace, which is used in connection with the
H.-H. process, is simply an improvement on the old Brunton calciner—a
circular furnace, with revolving hearth. The construction of this
furnace, according to American designs, is excellent. The hearth is
26 ft. in diameter; it is revolved at slow speed and requires about
1.5 h.p. A flange at the periphery of the hearth dips into sand in an
annular trough, thus shutting off air from the combustion chamber,
except through the ports designed for its admittance. The mechanical
construction of the furnace is workmanlike, and the mechanism under the
hearth is easy of access and comfortably attended to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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