How Metal

Extraction Is
Carried Out?
Lead ore and mines
The lead, zinc and copper veins on
Mendip were deposited by hot
mineralising fluids which is typically
between 50 and 150° C rising up from
depth and depositing various minerals as
they cooled.
01
Types of Lead Ore
Galena
Lead ore is most commonly found as lead sulphide
(PbS), which is galena, a heavy, shiny grey metallic
ore with a conspicuous cubic cleavage, but locally
lead was worked on Green Hill. Around
Charterhouse, the lead ore contained small amounts
of silver.

Pyromorphite on galena
Galena (grey), haematite (red-orange) and calcite
(white) in mineral vein, Shipham.
Types of Lead Ore
Anglesite
Anglesite is a lead sulfate mineral with the
chemical formula PbSO₄. It occurs as an
oxidation product of primary lead sulfide ore,
galena. Anglesite occurs as prismatic
orthorhombic crystals and earthy masses, and is
isomorphous with barite and celestine.
Types of Lead Ore Cerrusite

Cerussite (also known as lead carbonate or

white lead ore) is a mineral consisting of lead
carbonate (PbCO3), and is an important ore of
lead.

Color: Colorless, white, gray, blue, or green

 Primary lead veins

Primary lead ore was found in thin veins cutting through rock. In these
veins, it occurs as thin layers encrusting on walls of vein or as thin
bands, pockets or crystals within the vein. The veins always have other
waste minerals known as ‘gangue’, usually calcite or barytes.
 Secondary deposits

Lead ore usually occurred as large rounded ‘stones’ of galena in a soft mixture of
sand or clay infilling a fissure. These deposits are secondary residual orebodies
derived from now eroded primary lead veins. Being insoluble, the lead ore
remained in there as the surrounding limestone and vein calcite around them
wasted away. Over time, the fragments of lead ore accumulated at ground level,
keeping pace with the land surface as it was gradually lowered by erosion.
 Where was lead orefields?
Mining
Around Charterhouse,
Smitham Hill, Yoxter,
Chewton Warren and Green
Ore
Smaller lead
veins
Worked on Sandford Hill, near
Tynings Farm, Burrington Ham
and north of Pen Hill. Little ore
was found on East Mendip.
How Metal Extraction Is Carried
Out?

The primary manufacture of

lead involves three stages:
a) ore concentration
b) smelting
c) refining
 A form of extractive metallurgy to
produce a metal from its ore. Smelting
uses heat and a chemical reducing agent
to decompose the ore, driving off other
elements as gasses or slag and leaving
just the metal behind.

2.Smelting

1.Ore
Concentration
Removing gangue particles
from ore to enhance the
percentage of metal in the ore
3.Refining
Lead refining is a pyro-metallurgical
process. In the processing of pure lead,
smelted lead bullion (output of Rotary
Furnace) collected in a refining pot/kettle for
further treatment of impurities/dross.
How Metal Extraction Is Carried
Out?

Secondary production
1. Two-stage process
2. One-stage process
 Two-stage process
Smaller rotary or reverberatory furnaces are used to gives better control to quality of the
lead. Rotary furnaces can accept lead in almost any form, and can make use of many
different carbon sources like natural gas, oil and coke for reduction.
When the furnace is heated,any metallic lead melts and can be tapped off after a few hours.
This will give a high purity as other materials including lead compounds remain in the slag.
Further scrap is added and the process is repeated until sufficient slag has accumulated for
second stage.
The second stage involves reduction of slag using a carbon-
based reducing agent. Sodium carbonate or calcium
carbonate added as a 'flux' to help form the slag of
impurities. Lead oxides, lead sulfate and any antimony
oxides are reduced, and the result is 'antimonial lead', which
may also contain some bismuth and silver. The antimony
gives the lead greater strength.
 One-stage process
Isasmelt process is one of the most modern methods of secondary lead production
in which a one stage process used.This is fed into a furnace and melted using a
lance through mixture of oil and oxygen-enriched air. It is more economic to use
oxygen-enriched air as this increases the reaction rates and makes it easier to
ensure that no gases such as sulfur dioxide are lost and pollute the atmosphere.

For the next 36 hours,more paste together with coal as a reducing agent, is fed
into the furnace at about 1250 K and lead with a purity of 99.9% is tapped off
every few hours.Later, fluxes are added and the temperature raised to 1500 K.
This reduces the slag, which again results in antimonial lead.The Isasmelt process
has higher thermal efficiency, and the remaining waste slag has a lower residual
lead content.
Thanks!