Modern Copper Smelting: being lectures delivered at Birmingham University, greatly extended and adapted and with and introduction on the history, uses and properties of copper.Levy, Donald M.
Science
Modern Copper Smelting: being lectures delivered at Birmingham University, greatly extended and adapted and with and introduction on the history, uses and properties of copper.
Levy, Donald M.
Copper -- Metallurgy
The Isabella smelter comprises two furnaces of moderate size, 17
feet by 3 feet 4 inches at the tuyeres, having a joint capacity of
500 to 600 tons daily. The furnaces are about 9 feet high, and are
water-cooled. Air at only 20 to 30 ozs. pressure is supplied through
3-inch tuyeres. The smelting scheme is somewhat analogous to that
adopted at Copperhill, the first smelting producing a 20 per cent.
copper matte from the 2 per cent. ore, whilst the re-concentration
results in a converter-grade matte assaying 50 per cent. The coke
proportions are somewhat similar to those used at Copperhill, being 5·0
per cent. for the first smelting, and 3·5 per cent. for the second. The
furnace management at this small plant is exceedingly efficient, and
the campaigns are long, it being claimed that the furnace operations
have never had to be completely stopped on account of crusting or
gobbing. This is held to be due to the results of special care in
feeding and charge distribution, the ingenious Freeland charger already
described being used. The charge is kept low (6 to 8 feet above the
tuyeres), and is evenly red hot all through. The slags assay 35 to 36
per cent. silica, 38·8 per cent. iron, and 8·0 per cent. lime—with
moderate copper losses. The annual output is equivalent to about 3,000
tons of metallic copper. An acid-making plant is also attached to these
works.
=The Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid from Pyritic Furnace Gases.=—Modern
legislative requirements make severe demands upon the managements of
smelter-works where sulphury ores are dealt with, by reason of the
disastrous effects of the sulphurous gases upon the conditions of life
generally in the vicinity. In other cases, litigation by neighbouring
farmers and others impose restrictions on the amount and character of
the gases which the smelters are allowed to emit from their furnace
stacks. So serious has the problem become that several smelters have
had to cease operations altogether, others have been mulcted in
enormous costs by law suits, by claims for compensation, or by the
installation of plant and processes which they have been compelled to
adopt for dealing with the gases. These matters have become subjects of
historical importance in the development of smelter practice.
As has been the case in analogous circumstances elsewhere, when
interference with the uncontrolled dispersion of then-considered waste
products has often proved of ultimate benefit and a source of much
profit to their producers, the enforced treatment of highly sulphurous
furnace gases has in several instances resulted in considerable gain to
the copper smelters.
Among the methods which are at present economically practicable for
dealing with the smelter gases, those of dilution, and of utilisation
for acid manufacture are the most important.
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