smelting
Sign in to savethumb|Electric phosphate smelting furnace in a Tennessee Valley Authority|TVA [[chemical plant (1942)]]
Article
19 sectionsContents
- Process
- Roasting
- Reduction
- Fluxes
- Sulfide ores
- History
- Copper and bronze
- Tin and lead
- Early iron smelting{{anchor|early_iron_smelting_anchor}}
- Later iron smelting
- Environmental and occupational health impacts
- Air pollution
- Wastewater
- Health impacts
- Regulations
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|Electric phosphate smelting furnace in a Tennessee Valley Authority|TVA [[chemical plant (1942)]]
Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead, and zinc. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag and leaving the metal behind. The reducing agent is commonly a fossil-fuel source of carbon, such as carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion of coke—or, in earlier times, of charcoal. The oxygen in the ore binds to carbon at high temperatures, as the chemical potential energy of the bonds in carbon dioxide () is lower than that of the bonds in the ore.