Smelting: the Creating of Pure Metal from Ore

I had a pretty boring school assignment today, research how pure metal is made from ore! Not my choice, but I guess it did turn out sorta interesting... :)

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Smelting: the Creating of Pure Metal from Ore

“Washed iron ore from M2500” by

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Ore has to go through a special process before it reaches you in the form you've seen it in. When it is first mined out of the ground, it comes up in small chunks like the ones you see to the right. Depending on the type of the ore, it could have had some oxygen in it (as an oxide), sulfur (as a sulfide) or carbon and oxygen together (as a carbonate). To make the metal, the oxygen, sulfur and/or the carbon have to be taken out.

If, for example, the ore had sulfur in it, a process called “roasting” drives off the unwanted sulfur. The ore is treated with very hot air, which turns the sulfide into an oxide. The sulfur is released as sulfur dioxide, a gas. Often, the sulfur dioxide is used to make sulfuric acid (“used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, chemicals, explosives, and dyestuffs and in petroleum refining”).

After being “roasted” (if that was necessary), the ore is put through a process called “reduction”. It is here that the oxide is pulled out of the metal, and the metal is “pure”. The metal is heated to a high heat, in an air-starved environment. Since there isn't much air in there, a build-up of carbon monoxide (a gas) takes place. The carbon monoxide pulls the final oxygen atoms out of the raw metal and, tada! You have metal! (Though, it probably isn't as easy as it sounds.)

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roasting_(metallurgy),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting,
and quote from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sulfuric+acid