matte smelting

The following subsections briefly describe some of the processes used in matte smelting.

The other method, matte smelting, is the most important for the extraction of copper from sulphides.

The initial melting of the material to be smelted is usually referred to as the smelting or matte smelting stage.

Incomplete roasting is used to remove excess sulphur in copper and nickel sulphides in preparation the matte smelting process.

The purpose of the matte smelting stage is to eliminate as much of the unwanted iron, sulfur and gangue minerals (such as silica, magnesia, alumina and limestone) as possible, while minimizing the loss of copper.