What is smelting?
Q: What is smelting?
A: Smelting is the process of extracting a metal from its natural ore.
Q: What metals require smelting?
A: Metals such as iron, copper, zinc, and silver need to be extracted from their ore through smelting.
Q: What is used in the smelting process?
A: The smelting process usually involves heating the ore and may also use a reducing agent like coke or charcoal. A flux such as limestone is added to carry away impurities.
Q: How is iron produced from its ore?
A: Iron is produced from its ore by using a blast furnace which involves feeding it with coke, iron ore and limestone. Hot air is then blown into the furnace causing the coke to burn and reduce oxygen off the ore producing bare iron and carbon dioxide while the limestone binds off any remaining bedrock. The iron melts in hot temperature at the bottom of the furnace and can then be worked into steel.
Q: How does aluminum get extracted from its ore?
A: Aluminum gets extracted from its ore by using electric ovens called electric arc furnaces where aluminum ore is poured on the bottom of the furnace and electric current led through it resulting in high temperatures that separate oxygen leaving metallic aluminum behind.
Q: How does copper get extracted from its ores?
A: Copper gets extracted from its ores by pouring it on naked flame which burns off sulfur and other impurities leaving raw copper behind or by electrolysis which uses an electric current to separate copper in big pools containing water solution called electrolyte with all copper gathering on an electrode called cathode.
Q: When did metallurgy begin?
A: Metallurgy began around 5500 BC-5000 BC when evidence of copper smelting was found at sites in Pločnik and Belovode, Serbia
