where does the refiner make money

[Ayham Hafez]

I'm not proficient in cupelling.
But what I have read is that Copper is not wanted on the button since it do not oxidize well under the cupelling conditions.
Additionally I believe the oxide do not permeate well into the cupel itself.

Really interesting, if copper will not be oxidize that mean we can use lead for purifying copper anodes in same time lead is a very good collector metal.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Really interesting, if copper will not be oxidize that mean we can use lead for purifying copper anodes in same time lead is a very good collector metal.

I did not say Copper do not Oxidize, because it does.
But the way and conditions it oxidize under do not fit well with Cupelling.
It will destroy/foul the cupel relatively fast I believe.
Lets hear from the more experienced folks here.

 

[Ayham Hafez]

I did not say Copper do not Oxidize, because it does.
But the way and conditions it oxidize under do not fit well with Cupelling.
It will destroy/foul the cupel relatively fast I believe.
Lets hear from the more experienced folks here.

One professional refiner told me that 1 Kg of lead oxide only oxidize 200 gram of copper, in some countries they try to fully oxidize copper cause nitric acid is expensive and they don't use copper cell, so they use too much lead, and they have cupellation furnace design that can make cupollation of 200 kg of lead per batch

 

[Shark]

Under some conditions the copper will oxidize at a higher rate only after other metals are removed. Similar to sparging a melt. As some metals are removed it leaves enough oxygen to allow higher metals to oxidize and then be taken up by the flux’s. You really should read up on 4 metals posts on smelting and the ones on copper cells. They will give greater understanding of how the smelting side works even if you never use a cell.