Smelter

In extractive metallurgy, a smelter is a factory for producing metal by the reduction of ore.

Most smelters use specialised metallurgical furnaces to accomplish this. These are (or were) of various kinds. For iron, the primary smelting took place in a bloomery or in a blast furnace. For base metals such as copper and lead, smelt mills were used and later reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas.

Some smelters required a forced draught provided by bellows to blow in air and heat up the interior so that it was hot enough to melt metals. In the industrial revolution, bellows were replaced by blowing tubs (or cylinders), usually operated by a steam engine. However reverberatory furnaces are air furnaces, where the draught was provided by convection as a result of hot gases rising up a chimney. Some have long flue systems, so that the flue gases cooled enough for metal vapour to condense.

More detailed descriptions of the various processes will be found under each different type of plant.

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