Metallurgy of Copper

METALLURGY of COPPER by JOSEPH NEWTON. PREFACE: The aim of this book is to present a discussion of the various methods employed in winning copper from its ores and in refining the metal to commercial grade. Examples of modern practice are included to illustrate the application of these methods, but no attempt has been ma-le to compile a complete and exhaustive treatise on the practice all over the world. Such a treatise might well require several volumes. onfining the discussion largely to the extraction and refining of r, it has been possible to touch only lightly on several related cts because of space limitation. The chapter on ore dressing is m. ly a summary to indicate the methods used in dressing copper ores and the nature of the resulting concentrates. It was not possible to consider the subject of copper alloys in any great detail. An attempt has been made to give credit at the proper place for all material used in the book. The authors extend their thanks to the various mining, smelting, refining, and manufacturing companies, and to the publishing companies for their kind and willing cooperation. JOSEPH NEWTON. Contents include: I. FROM ORE TO CONCENTRATE 1 II. THE EXTRACTION OF COPPER FROM ITS ORES .... 32 III. ROASTING 50 IV. SMELTING 76 V. CONVERTING 162 VI. FIRE REFINING 188 VII. SMOKE AND OASES 226 VIII. ELECTROLYTIC REFINING 250 IX. HVDROMEI U. LVRGY . 303 X. PROPERTIED OF COPPER 379 XI. THE USES OF COPPER 396 XII. PRODUCTION OF COPPER 430 BIBLIOGR PIIY . . 499 NAME INDEX 501 SUBJECT INDEX 503. CHAPTER I: FROM ORE TO CONCENTRATE THE IMPORTANCE OF COPPER. From the beginning of recorded history until the end of the medieval period, copper was the worlds most useful metal. Its use marked the transitory step in the progress of civilization from the Stone Age to the Metal Age. Although gold, owing to its sparkling yellow color, its high luster, its resistance to corrosion and tarnish, and its occurrence in the free or elemental state in nature, was unquestionably the first metal to attract the attention of man, and although in certain localities iron, 1 in the form of meteorites or even obtained by the reduction of the oxide with charcoal, may have been used before copper, nevertheless every ancient metal culture was actually introduced by the use of copper. 2 In the form of pure metal, fashioned first by the crude hammering of masses of native copper and later by melting, and in the form of bronze, obtained by smelting mixed tin and copper ores, it was employed originally for ornaments and statues and then as tools, domestic utensils, implements of war, and for every purpose in which its strength, hardness, and toughness proved its superiority to stone, wood, and other materials. When the methods of producing iron evolved from the direct processes through the cast iron period to puddling, cementation, and the crucible process, iron and steel usurped coppers position of first importance and with the advent of the Bessemer and open-hearth processes, ferrous materials attained such ease of large-scale production and such widespread use that they almost eclipsed copper The age of electricity, however, introduced new requirements for materials to be used in the generation and transmission of electrical energy copper immediately entered its rejuvenation 3 and assumed firs place in importance in the electrical field and second in general utility in our present-day civilization. ..