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

Oxide Ores are rarely wet-dressed. They present much difficulty in treatment on account of their comparatively low density, which makes efficient wet concentration almost impossible, whilst heavy losses in the tailings generally accompany such operations.

Sulphide Ores.—No definite rules can be laid down as to whether the ore should be wet-dressed or not; the treatment depends altogether on attendant circumstances, such as—(a) the character of the ore, (b) the concentration of the copper desired in the first smelting operation, and (c) the smelting method and furnaces adopted.

Wet concentration is only profitable when the copper ore is of low grade, and then only under suitable conditions. Thus the low tenor may be due to admixture with much gangue or with other sulphides, or both. A massive low-grade pyritic ore carrying but little gangue is not suitable for such treatment, since the mixed sulphides are not separated from one another by wet dressing, and consequently but little enrichment of the copper in the dressed product would be possible; apart altogether from other considerations. Such is the case, for instance, with the Tennessee ores carrying about 2·0 per cent. of copper and only 25 to 35 per cent. of gangue.

An ore with a self-fluxing or almost self-fluxing gangue might allow of its copper being concentrated more cheaply and conveniently by direct smelting than by wet dressing, this depending, of course, on the local conditions.

In other cases a balance has to be struck as to whether the circumstances are more favourable for removing the excess of gangue by means of crushing and treatment in a stream of water, or by slagging it off in a furnace with the addition of suitable fluxes. In many cases, with low-grade ores, the former treatment is the cheaper.

The case of the low-grade ores of the Butte, Montana, district, affords a good example of these considerations. This ore contains 5 to 5½ per cent. copper, with a large quantity of highly siliceous gangue. It was found that the purchase and carriage of sufficient flux, and the cost of carrying out this fluxing operation was so expensive that it was cheaper to build a concentrator and smelter at Anaconda, 30 miles away—in a locality where a suitable water supply was available for the dressing—and to convey the ore this distance in order to concentrate it by a wet method. The dressed ore assays 9 to 10 per cent. of copper.

It is important to note that the process of wet dressing involves crushing the ore, and yields the product in a more or less finely divided form. Most copper sulphide minerals are exceedingly brittle, and break up to a very small size on crushing for concentration, so that the copper concentrates usually include a large quantity of fine material.

There are two general types of furnace available for smelting—reverberatory furnaces and blast furnaces—and the questions of the desirability and of the degree of crushing and concentration depend to a large extent on the plant and furnaces adopted or proposed.

Blast-furnace treatment has hitherto often been considered the most economical process for smelting copper ores, especially with regard to fuel costs, but for many reasons it is not a convenient or efficient furnace for the direct treatment of fine material. When it is desired to employ the blast furnace, it is necessary to make up charges consisting, to as great an extent as possible, of coarse material. In consequence, when concentrating ores with a view to subsequent blast-furnace treatment, the degree of crushing and dressing has to be modified with these factors in view; otherwise a further preliminary manipulation of the fine concentrates that are produced is rendered necessary. Such modified dressing schemes involve a maximum of coarse breaking and screening, the crushing and separating stages being thus very gradual, and the units in the plant are multiplied, whilst the process is rendered complex in consequence. With the greatest care, moreover, large quantities of fines are bound to be produced, and have to be dealt with by some means other than immediate blast-furnace treatment.

Dressing schemes and plant for sulphide copper ores are thus often complicated, particularly for the recovery of the values from the finer material, and cannot be discussed at any length here. Reference should be made to Richards or other standard works on the subject.