Filtering, Roasting & Blasting of Lead Ore

Once the lead ore has been concentrated and has been placed in the flotation cells, it then goes to a filter that will take care of getting rid of around ninety percent of all the water in it. By this point the concentrate should have around forty to eighty percent of lead in it and it will also contain a great amount of other impurities as well such as zinc and sulphur and should be ready to be taken to get smeltered. Any rock or gangue that does not have any of the mineral on it will need to be pumped out of the flotation tank. The roasting of the ore is the next step that needs to take place. The lead concentrate from the filter then needs to be more refined to get rid of the sulphur in it. The concentrate is unloaded at the sinter plant and there it is combined with other materials that bear lead along with sand and limestone. This big mixture is then placed over a moving grate and heated air blows through the gate. For fuel coke is added and the sulphur in the ore concentrate combusts to sulphur dioxide gas. The sulphur dioxide is a vital byproduct of the process of refining the lead. This is captured at the separate acid plant and is turned into sulphuric acid which can then be utilized in diverse ways. The sinter mainly consists of lead oxide however it can also have oxides of zinc, iron, lime, silicon, and sulphur. When the sinter gets off the moving grate, it breaks into pieces and these pieces are then placed into a blast furnace along with coke fuel. This process involves air that comes through the bottom part of the furnace and it does the job of combusting the coke. The coke which burns at a very high temperature produces carbon monoxide and it has a reaction with the lead and additional metal oxides and this produces carbon dioxide, nonmetallic waste slag, and molten lead. The molten metal is the placed in molds.