Non-ferrous extractive metallurgy

In hydrometallurgy, the object metal is first dissociated from other materials using a chemical reaction, which is then extracted in pure form using electrolysis or precipitation.

[7] Another major difference in non-ferrous extraction is the greater emphasis on minimizing metal losses in slag.

This is widely due to the exceptional scarcity and economic value of certain non-ferrous metals which are, inevitably, discarded during the extraction process to some extent.

Early smelters developed ways to effectively increase smelting temperatures by feeding the fire with forced flows of oxygen.

[4] Copper extraction in particular is of great interest in archeometallurgical studies since it dominated other metals in Mesopotamia from the early Chalcolithic until the mid-to-late sixth century BC.

The earliest known use of pyrometallurgical extraction of copper occurred in Belovode, eastern Serbia, from the late sixth to early fifth millennium BC.

[4] The earliest silver objects began appearing in the late fourth millennium BC in Anatolia, Turkey.

[14] Cupellation was also being used in parts of Europe to extract gold, silver, zinc, and tin by the late ninth to tenth century AD.

Here, one of the earliest examples of an integrated unit process for extracting more than one precious metal was first introduced by Theophilus around the twelfth century.

The discovery of a new “wet process” for extracting copper from mine water was introduced between the eleventh and twelfth century, which helped to mitigate their loss of supply.