Name: Ellingham Diagram: Introduction
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 7 min 42 s
Description: The Ellingham diagram proved to be a cornerstone for the process of reducing metal oxides to their native form. Watch this video to learn about the Ellingham...

Question

Describe different steps involved in the extraction of metals from their ores.

Accepted Answer

Metals are used by humans in all forms according to specific need. Metal are extracted from its ores and purified . The chemical and physical method involved in doing so are called metallurgical processes. It involves following steps-

1.Grinding and Crushing. The bigger chunks of the ore extracted are crushed and grounded in ball mills and crushers.This is called pulverization. It helps in increasing surface area to use economical quantity of chemical required in further steps.

2.Concentrating the Ore. This step concentrates the ore by performing the removal of impurities.Depending upon the difference in properties of metal and impurities, methods are applied. Hydraulic washing, magnetic separation, leaching, froth floatation are some methods

3.Reduction of ore to get the metal oxide-This process involves of getting impure metal from its concentrated ore. It is a chemical process.Calcination, Roasting, hydrometallurgy , pyrometallurgy , Electrochemical Process are used to obtain metal /metaloxide.

4.Further reduction of metal oxide to get impure metal -Smelting is done to get the impure metal.

5.Purification of ore- It involves the purification of the metal.Distillation, Liquation, Electrolysis , Zone refining,Vapour phase refining and Chromatographic methods.

Here is a flow chart to understand the metallurgical process

Describe different steps involved in the extraction of metals from their ores.

Important Questions on General Principles and Processes of Isolation of Elements

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