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Oil, Gas & Mining vocabulary · Ore Processing

Smelting

Meaning in oil, gas & mining, with examples

/ˈsmeltɪŋ/nounCommon term

In oil, gas & mining, smelting means: Heating ore or concentrate to a very high temperature in a furnace to separate the metal from other elements, leaving a waste called slag.

In Turkish: izabe, ergitme

How it is used

Done at a smelter, which buys concentrate from mines and charges treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs). Smelting is used for copper, lead, zinc, nickel and iron. Words that go with it: furnace, slag, matte, sulphur dioxide and acid plant.

Example sentences

  1. The concentrate is sent abroad for smelting.

  2. Copper smelting releases sulphur dioxide, which the plant turns into sulphuric acid.

Common collocations

  • copper smelting
  • smelting furnace
  • smelter
  • treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs)
  • concentrateThe main product of a processing plant: a powder in which the valuable mineral is much richer than in the original ore, ready to be sold or sent to a smelter.
  • leachingDissolving a metal out of ore with a chemical solution, for example cyanide for gold or sulphuric acid for copper, and then recovering the metal from the solution.
  • oreRock that contains enough of a valuable metal or mineral to be mined and processed at a profit, for example iron ore or copper ore.
  • recoveryThe percentage of the valuable metal in the ore that a processing plant actually manages to capture in its final product.

More terms: Ore Processing

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