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Refining

Refining involves purifying an impure metal through processes like pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, resulting in a chemically identical but purer material. Smelting uses heat and a reducing agent like carbon to extract metals from ores through chemical reactions, changing the metal's oxidation state. Calcination is a thermal treatment that decomposes, transitions phases, or removes volatiles from ores below melting points, distinguished from roasting which involves more complex gas-solid reactions.

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34 views

Refining

Refining involves purifying an impure metal through processes like pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, resulting in a chemically identical but purer material. Smelting uses heat and a reducing agent like carbon to extract metals from ores through chemical reactions, changing the metal's oxidation state. Calcination is a thermal treatment that decomposes, transitions phases, or removes volatiles from ores below melting points, distinguished from roasting which involves more complex gas-solid reactions.

Uploaded by

Jawad Raza
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Refining :-

(as in non-metallurgical uses) consists of purifying an impure material,


in this case a metal. It is to be distinguished from other processes such
as smelting and calcining in that those two involve a chemical change to
the raw material, whereas in refining, the final material is usually
identical chemically to the original one, only it is purer. The processes
used are of many types, including pyrometallurgical and
hydrometallurgical techniques.

Smelting :-
is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal
from its ore. This includes iron extraction (for the production of steel)
from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their
ores. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to change the
oxidation state of the metal ore; the reducing agent is commonly a
source of carbon such as coke, or in earlier times charcoal. The carbon
or carbon monoxide derived from it removes oxygen from the ore to
leave the metal. The carbon is thus oxidized in two stages, producing
first carbon monoxide and then carbon dioxide. As most ores are impure,
it is often necessary to use flux, such as limestone, to remove the
accompanying rock gangue as slag.

Plants for the electrolytic reduction of aluminium, while not using


carbon, are also generally referred to as smelters.

Calcination:-
(also referred to as calcining) is a thermal treatment process applied to
ores and other solid materials in order to bring about a thermal
decomposition, phase transition, or removal of a volatile fraction. The
calcination process normally takes place at temperatures below the
melting point of the product materials. Calcination is to be
distinguished from roasting, in which more complex gas-solid reactions
take place between the furnace atmosphere and the solids

Calcination reactions:-
Calcination reactions usually take place at or above the thermal
decomposition temperature (for decomposition and volatilization
reactions) or the transition temperature (for phase transitions). This
temperature is usually defined as the temperature at which the standard
Gibbs free energy for a particular calcination reaction is equal to zero.
For example, in limestone calcination, a decomposition process, the
chemical reaction is

CaCO3 → CaO + CO2(g) [1]

Examples of chemical decomposition reactions common in calcination


processes, and their respective thermal decomposition temperatures
include:

CaCO3 → CaO + CO2; 848 °C

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