Show TURNING ORE TO COPPER WW lck i copper furnace I 1 r 1 ftc cha r 9 bins W A 44 I 1 M N a J 4 scenes in modern utah copper smelting smelling Sm elting A plant moving rig blister copper from i 4 ILI converter erter to pourer pouring I 1 MA by E mo me L HE copper and accompanying T THE siliceous ores treated by utah i smelters shelters sm elters in 1935 would cover 11 salt lake city block to a depth ot if 40 teet feet this material gathered a from utah california colorado idaho and nevada before it could be made useful in industries and the arts called for the labor of 1 1500 men inen railroad cars and worth of supplies principally ci of utah origin tour four billion Z cubic teet feet of natural gas 36 1 million k w hours of electrical power and large tonnages ton nages of brick t the ore had to be ted mixed in proper proportions treed freed from some of its sulphur by roast ing in separated into metals and slag by smelling smelting sm elting and finally parted into individual metallic substances 1 ly by refining certain natural advantages make cake utah an ideal copper smelt ing center which attracts ores from is 1 wide area and creates a market not only tor for producers of copper x but for or miners of 0 gold and silver I 1 ores the advantages include food I 1 and clothing ample tor for a large num I 1 ler ber of skilled and unskilled workers 11 plentiful supplies of fuel and water ws and the services of three great railroad systems disbursements by the smelters shelters sm elters help sustain agriculture wholesale and retail merchandising 4 and the professional classes I 1 the treatment of copper ores is interesting paid for the shipments from each mine must be sampled and valued separately bites of crushed ore taken at regular intervals from conveyor belts tre are averaged by successive divisions to a sample small enough tor for the assay which forms the basis ot of settlement the lot is then mixed with ores necessary to f form r i a suitable smelting smelling sm elting charge orni in roasting the ore is heated to a point where some of the sulphur Is burned off as sulphur dioxide gas A series of revolving rakes in the toaster master insure even heating temperatures pera tures in the ro asters vary from to 1200 degrees after the charge has been roasted it Is hauled to the furnaces in i tarry hrry cars the r furnaces are to teet feet long and 20 to 0 30 0 feet wide above is the charge floor carrying the tracks from which the larry cars dump the roasted ore into the furnace nace there it slowly melts down all two products are formed the copper sulphur and some of the e fr iron on combine to form copper matte the matte also collects the gold old and silver in the ore the laste aste products form a slag which oats and Is drawn oft off and con bened to the slag dump the matte it 13 tapped out st it a lower level near the e bring end to obtain blister copper it Is nee essary to treat the copper matte la converters steel cylinders with a large opening in the middle through which the matte Is charged and the finished copper drawn off when the converter has sufficient clent matte tor for a charge it Is rolled back until a set of air vents is beneath the molten metal air is then blown into this and siliceous ore added from the bins above As the air Is blown through the large some of 0 the sulphur is arlyen ardven oft off as a gas the iron Is changed into iron oxide and forms a slag with the silica in the siliceous ore As the process continues all the iron is thus snagged slag stag ged but the copper which is in the form ot of copper sulphide Is not affected when all the iron has been snagged off the air begins to work on the remaining copper sulphide the sulphur then burns to sulphur dioxide gas passing up the hue flue at the end of 0 this operation the matte converted into blister copper remains in the converters this is poured oft off and transferred to the casting furnace to await pouring into slabs or bars the waste gases from the roast ers les and converters carry much fine dust and fumes these gases before being released through the smokestacks smoke stacks are cleaned in cotrell plants high tension electric currents precipitate the dust on steel plates from which it is periodically shaken into hoppers beneath during 1935 pounds ot of copper was produced in the united states salt lake valley copper smelters shelters sm elters produced pounds or percent of the total production from mines in utah amounted to pounds the difference some 1 21 pou pounds ds represents copper 1 in ores originating rig bating in nearby states that was shipped to utah tor for treatment in treating copper ores and concentrates cen other types such as siliceous and sulphide ores are necessary to make a suitable furnace charge in this way the copper smelters sm eltera elters have been able to offer a market to the producers of these gold and silver ores because of this the mining territory tributary to salt lake valley has been constantly expanding until 30 percent of the ore smelted smelter originates in other states the economic advantage to the people of utah Is obvious the copper smelting smelling sm elting industry should be a substantial asset of this state tor for a long time to come whether or not this will be the case depends on the efforts exerted not only by the industry but by the people of the state to overcome adverse conditions which will crop up from time to time in tile the future |