Pyrometallurgy: Roasting, Smelting, Refining & Electrowinning

Pyrometallurgy: Roasting, Smelting, Refining & Electrowinning

  • To participate in the 911Metallurgist Forums, be sure to JOIN & LOGIN
  • Use Add New Topic to ask a New Question/Discussion about Pyrometallurgy and Electrometallurgy.
  • OR Select a Topic that Interests you.
  • Use Add Reply = to Reply/Participate in a Topic/Discussion (most frequent).
    Using Add Reply allows you to Attach Images or PDF files and provide a more complete input.
  • Use Add Comment = to comment on someone else’s Reply in an already active Topic/Discussion.

Help smelting oxidized concentrates (1 reply)

K
Soar2cLLC
2 years ago
Soar2cLLC 2 years ago

I seem to be losing half of my lead collector metal during my smelt.

My smelt consitentcy usually needs several reapplications of borax after already adding in 2x the sample weight of borax and 1x the sample weight of champman Flux.

Its usually a very thick smelt until I get it to thin out enough and it cools before all of the metal collects at the tip of the cone mold, there's dull Grey particulate all throughout my black glass slag

After the pour cools, my lead collector metal is half of what I started with. 

When I place the lead button on a cupell and put it in the muffle furnace, my result was a dull golden crystalline substance mixed with some type of silver colored metal crystalline substance.

I'm a whole slew of issues and I realize that but I'm determined so what and where should I start adjusting?

USER SCOPED TEMP DATA orca image 981175839
https://www.911metallurgist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/USER_SCOPED_TEMP_DATA_orca-image-981175839.jpeg
J
Jorge
2 years ago
Jorge 2 years ago
Like

If your sample has a degree of oxidation, try to add flour, which is the most commonly used reducing agent. It is used in samples with oxidation in order to reduce the litharge to molten lead for the collection of gold and silver. Carbon is the active ingredient in flour. The flour that used is ordinary wheat flour. Flour is cheap and it is readily available. It also is very fine and mixes well with the ores and fluxes. One thing that one should consider when using flour is that flour has varying moisture content. Generally, 1 gram of flour will reduce 11 grams of Pb. The size of button to aim for is a range from 20 to 35 grams.

Please join and login to participate and leave a comment.