Smelting
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Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as
Electric phosphate smelting furnace in a TVA chemical plant (1942)
Copper smelter, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
Electrolytic cells at an aluminum smelter in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, France
Cowles Syndicate of Ohio in Stoke-upon-Trent England, late 1880s. British Aluminium used the process of Paul Héroult about this time.
Coke (fuel)
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Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content. It is made by heating coal or petroleum in the absence of air. Coke is an important industrial product, used mainly in the
Smelting
…slag and leaving the metal behind. The reducing agent is commonly a fossil-fuel source of carbon, such as carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion of coke—or, in earlier times, of charcoal. The oxygen in the ore binds to carbon at high temperatures, as the chemical potential energy of the bonds in carbon…
Raw coke
A coke oven at a smokeless fuel plant, Abercwmboi, Wales, 1976
The Monckton Coke Works at Royston, South Yorkshire, in operation discharging glowing coke from one of the bank of ovens on the left in 2013
Postcard depicting coke ovens and coal tipple in Fayette County, Pennsylvania