Modern Copper Smelting Practice — Preliminary Treatment
of Ores: Concentration, Briquetting, Sintering — The
Principles of Copper Smelting — Roasting.
=Modern Copper Smelting Practice.=—Until recently, modern smelting
practice has been understood to involve the production of a matte
containing from 40 to 50 per cent. of copper, which is then
bessemerised.
There are however proceeding at present (owing to the successful
working of basic-lined converters) developments which indicate that
such practice may, within a few years, be modified very considerably
in the direction of the converter treatment of lower-grade mattes.
Until such operations become successfully established and generally
adopted, the production and subsequent bessemerising of 40 to 50 per
cent. matte will be here dealt with as constituting modern practice;
particularly since, generally speaking, the principles involved are
equally applicable to the modified methods now being developed.
=Preliminary Treatment of the Ore.=—The factors which have to be
considered in drawing up a scheme of treatment for the supply of ores
shipped to a smelter are exceedingly numerous, and will be discussed in
due order. There are no hard and fast principles which determine such
schemes, yet a number of considerations must be noted concerning the
treatment preliminary to the actual smelting of the ores.