Powder the regulus in a mortar and transfer to a small crucible. Calcine, with occasional stirring, until no odour of sulphurous oxide can be detected. Shake back into the mortar, rub up with about 1 gram of powdered anthracite, and re-calcine for 10 minutes longer.
Mix the calcined regulus with 10 grams of tartar, 20 grams of soda, and 3 grams of borax; and replace in the crucible used for calcining. Fuse at a bright red heat for 10 or 15 minutes. Pour, when tranquil.
As soon as solid, quench in water, separate the button of copper, and save the slag.
To refine the copper a very hot fire is wanted, and the fuel should not be too low down in the furnace. Place the crucible well down in the fire and in the middle of the furnace. The same crucible is used, or, if a new one is taken, it must be glazed with a little borax. When the crucible is at a good red heat, above the fusing point of copper, drop the button of copper into it, and close the furnace. Watch through the crevice, and, as soon as the button has melted and appears clear showing an eye, shoot in 10 grams of refining flux, close the furnace, and, in a few minutes, pour; then separate the button of copper. Add the slag to that from the coarse copper fusion, and powder. Mix with 5 grams of tartar, 0.5 gram of powdered charcoal, and 2 grams of soda. Fuse in the same crucible, and, when tranquil, pour; quench, and pick out the prills of metal.
If the copper thus got from the slags is coarse looking and large in amount, it must be refined; but, if small in quantity, it may be taken as four-fifths copper. The combined results multiplied by five give the percentage of copper.
The refining flux is made by mixing 3 parts (by measure) of powdered nitre, 2-1\2 of tartar, and 1 of salt. Put in a large crucible, and stir with a red-hot iron until action has ceased. This operation should be carried out in a well-ventilated spot.
For pure ores in which the copper is present, either as metal or oxide, and free from sulphur, arsenic, &c., the concentration of the copper in a regulus may be omitted, and the metal obtained in a pure state by a single fusion.[50] It is necessary to get a fluid neutral slag with the addition of as small an amount of flux as possible. The fusion should be made at a high temperature, so as not to occupy more than from 20 to 25 minutes. Thirty grams of ore is taken for a charge, mixed with 20 grams of cream of tartar, and 10 grams each of dried borax and soda. If the gangue of the ore is basic, carrying much oxide of iron or lime, silica is added, in quantity not exceeding 10 grams. If, on the other hand, the gangue is mainly quartz, oxide of iron up to 7 grams must be added.
Example.—Twenty grams of copper pyrites, known to contain 27.6 per cent. of copper, gave by the method first described 5.22 grams of copper, equalling 26-1/8 per cent. Another sample of 20 grams of the same ore, calcined, fused with 40 grams of nitre, and washed to ensure the removal of arsenic and sulphur, and treated according to the second method, gave a button weighing 5.27 grams, equalling 26-3/8 per cent. The ore contained a considerable quantity of lead. Lead renders the assay more difficult, since after calcination it remains as lead sulphate, and in the fusion for coarse copper reappears as a regulus on the button.
The Estimation of Moisture.—The Cornish dry assayer very seldom makes a moisture determination. He dries the samples by placing the papers containing them on the iron plate of the furnace.
It is well known that by buying the copper contents of pyrites by Cornish assay, burning off the sulphur, and converting the copper into precipitate, a large excess is obtained.