Copper ore smelting

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minthethtun

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Sep 27, 2022
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MANDALAY
The blast furnace is built with 5 air inlets. In the furnace, air is blown from the air reservoir and enters the furnace through it. The oven is 10 inches deep. The oven is 4 feet high. I think that when melting copper ore, the required fire temperature is not reached. When smelting copper ore, limestone/silica/iron/borax/ is added. But melting copper is bad. The bottom cup of the furnace is tangled with slip/charcoal/ and needs a copper concentration. Do you need fire temperature? Or because of something else?
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minthethtun said:
The blast furnace is built with 5 air inlets. In the furnace, air is blown from the air reservoir and enters the furnace through it. The oven is 10 inches deep. The oven is 4 feet high. I think that when melting copper ore, the required fire temperature is not reached. When smelting copper ore, limestone/silica/iron/borax/ is added. But melting copper is bad. The bottom cup of the furnace is tangled with slip/charcoal/ and needs a copper concentration. Do you need fire temperature? Or because of something else?
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Not enough oxygen/too much fuel. Do you have a crucible?
 
You are not speaking the lingo spoken here. I am assuming you are trying to reduce the oxidized Copper ore in the photos, to refined Copper metal.It can be done with the addition of the proper fluxes (read the assaying book in the library). However this is for quantitative amounts from a laboratory environment. Real world logistics will dictate either leaching first, or crush/grind to optimal particle size, and recover via floatation. This will render a more concentrated product, that will then be amendable to smelting and the greater yield of metal, for the cost of energy needed to produce the final Copper metal.
Your smelt looks like you got it about 50% of the way to reduced metal, but not quite. Reading the book on assaying will benefit you immensely. Read it, then ask questions here.
 
minthethtun said:
The blast furnace is built with 5 air inlets. In the furnace, air is blown from the air reservoir and enters the furnace through it. The oven is 10 inches deep. The oven is 4 feet high. I think that when melting copper ore, the required fire temperature is not reached. When smelting copper ore, limestone/silica/iron/borax/ is added. But melting copper is bad. The bottom cup of the furnace is tangled with slip/charcoal/ and needs a copper concentration. Do you need fire temperature? Or because of something else?
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From photos and video I saw, I think you should use more NaOH and Carbon inside your furnance For remove more unwanted elements. or for simplest, buy assay fluxes.

You don't need to add silica and iron because it's contaminants your copper metals. You need bigger cuppola if you use silica and iron or pb as flux for your malachite ore reactions. For your mini furnance, you just need NaOH + Carbon.

then, use cold water as your metal mold container to evaporates and give shock effect to any calcium, carbonate, etc when the Copper and other group 1 metals melts with your copper.
 
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What is the host rock? That will determine if your ore is a basic, or acid host rock. Then you can assemble the proper fluxes. What temperature can your furnace attain for say an hour?
 

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