Methods
Smelting
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Smelting extracts a metal from its ore by heating the ore with a chemical reducing agent, usually carbon in the form of charcoal or coke, which bonds with the ore oxygen and other non-metal elements and frees the metal in molten or spongy form. It is the foundational method behind the Bronze Age and Iron Age, and still underlies the production of iron, copper, tin, lead and many other industrial metals today.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearCopper smelting is attested independently across the Balkans and the Near East from roughly the fifth millennium BCE; no single point of origin is established. Core PrincipleHeating a metal ore together with a reducing agent, typically carbon, so the agent draws off the ore oxygen and other impurities, freeing the metal in molten or spongy form. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Bronze, Materials Bronze is produced by smelting and alloying copper and tin ores.
Forging, Methods Forging typically works metal that smelting has already extracted from its ore.
Ore that mining engineering extracts is generally processed further by smelting to yield usable metal.
The blast furnace is an industrial-scale, continuous smelting furnace for iron ore.
In Field
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Science Atlas: Chemistry, discussed there.
Sources
1. Smelting (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product.
2. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954
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