Ore is recovered by blasting then dumping, followed by crushing and finally hoisting to the surface for treatment. In mining, the ore is extracted by drilling or blasting and then crushed and ground. The ore is then treated using extractive metallurgy. The Froth flotation process separates the Lead and other minerals from the waste rock (tailings) to form a concentrate. The concentrate, which can range from 50% to 60% Lead, is dried and then treated using pyrometallurgy. The concentrate is sintered before being smelted in to produce a 97% Lead concentrate. The Lead is then cooled in stages which cause the lighter impurities (dross) to rise to the surface where they can be removed. The molten Lead bullion is then refined by additional smelting with air being passed over the Lead to form a slag layer containing any remaining impurities and producing 99.9% pure Lead.

In order to recover Lead out of Lead Concentrates, Smelting process is done using some chemicals & additives as reducing agents.

We provide Eco-friendly Technology for carrying out these Smelting operations.

The conventional pyrometallurgical primary lead production process consists of four steps: Sintering, Smelting, Drossing, and Refining.

A feedstock made up mainly of lead concentrate is fed into a sintering machine. The sintering feed, along with coke, is fed into a furnace for reducing, where the carbon smelts the lead-containing materials. The molten lead is taken out from flows to the bottom of the furnace, where four layers form: “speiss” (the lightest material, basically arsenic and antimony), “matte” (copper sulfide and other metal sulfides), blast furnace slag (primarily silicates), and lead bullion (98% by weight). All layers are then drained off. The speiss and matte are sold to copper smelters for recovery of copper and precious metals.