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Pyrometallurgy near the end of the 20th century

  • Sulfide Smelting
  • Industrial Insight
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Abstract

The second part of this century has seen great developments with a variety of new technologies, such as telecommunications, computers, and space travel. However, an age-old technology, the use of fire to make metals, also developed dramatically during this period—pyrometallurgy was used to produce more metal than the cumulative production of the millennia before it. The following discusses the extraordinary developments in flash-and bath-smelting technologies; the article also examines the issues that will drive the prospects of pyrometallurgy for the future. Currently, metal markets are on “easy street”: metal profits are low, and government and industry in the United States have little interest in metals extraction research and development. This article discusses factors that may change this situation in the near future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Henry Krumb School of Mines of Columbia University, USA

    Nickolas J. Themelis Ph.D. (Stanley-Thompson Professor of Chemical Metallurgy, member of TMS)

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  1. Nickolas J. Themelis Ph.D.
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Themelis, N.J. Pyrometallurgy near the end of the 20th century. JOM 46, 51–57 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03220778

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