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.

by Donald M. Levy

At Copperhill, Tenn., the converters are charged from ladles which are filled from the blast-furnace settlers situated at the other side of the furnace-building, whilst at the most modern large plant, at Tooele, Utah, the matte is run directly from the reverberatory furnaces to the converters along launders which are nearly 80 feet long and inclined at about 7 in 100. This method avoids all the handling of matte by cranes and ladles with the attendant troubles of skulls, breaks-down, spills, etc., and no difficulty has been found in keeping the channel free and open, nor in supplying matte at a sufficiently high temperature. At Anaconda and Tooele, the side of the converter-shop situated opposite to the converters is devoted to the refining and casting furnaces and to the slag-casting machines.

Modifications of Converter Practice.—(1) David’s Best Selecting Process.—David devised a special form of converter and suggested a method for conducting in the converter, instead of in the reverberatory furnace, the operations of the best “selecting process” on the principles of the old Welsh practice. The method embodied the converting of the matte somewhat beyond the white metal stage, by which means a small quantity of metallic copper was produced, in which the whole of the gold and silver values and most of the impurities collected, the remaining white metal being left tolerably pure. The metallic copper, thus obtained, was run into a side pocket in the lining and tapped from there, the rest of the pure white-metal was blown up to pure best-select copper.

Fig. 68.—General View of Converter Shop, Anaconda.

The method is, however, too specialised for ordinary commercial copper smelting, especially when electrolytic refining of the crude metal can be conveniently arranged for.

(2) The Haas Converter.—The Haas converter is spherical in form, and the tuyere holes through the lining are arranged at such an angle as to lessen the pressure required for the forcing of air through the metal. It is claimed for this form that it ensures better mixing of the materials and more even wear on the lining, by imparting a swirling motion to the bath.

References.

Douglas, James, “Treatment of Copper Matte in the Bessemer Converter.” Trans. Inst. Min. and Met., 1899, vol. viii., p. 1.

Baggaley, “A Brief Description of the Baggaley Process.”