General Principles and Processes of Isolation of Elements

 Earth crust is the major source of many elements.

 Aluminum is the most abundant metal of earth crust
 Iron is the second most metal in earth crust
 Elements occur in two forms in nature (i) in native state (ii) in combined state
i. Native State Elements: The elements which have no or very low chemical reactivity are
called as native state elements. These elements do not react with oxygen, moisture or with
CO2 of the air. E.g., Au, Ag, Pt, S, O, N, noble gases, etc.
ii. Combined state elements: The elements which are highly reactive and occur in combined
form as their compounds such as oxides, carbonates, sulphides and halides, etc. E.g. F, CI,
Na, K, etc.,

Minerals: The naturally occurring substances in the form of which the metals occur in the earth
crust are called minerals.
Ore: The mineral from which the metal is economically and conveniently extracted is called an
ore.
Gangue: undesired substance or impurities present in ore are known as gangue

Note: all ores are minerals but all minerals are not ores

Metallurgy The entire scientific and technological process used for isolation of the metal from
its ores is known as metallurgy.
Types of Metallurgical Processes
1. Pyrometallurgy: Extraction of metals takes place at very high temperature. E.g. Cu, Fe, Zn
and Sn are extracted by this method.
2. Hydrometallurgical process: Extraction of metals takes place by the use of their aqueous
solution. E.g. Ag and Au are extracted by this method.
3. Electrometallurgical process: Extraction of metals takes place from their molten salt solution
through electrolytic method. E.g. Na, K, Li and Ca etc.
Steps Involved in Metallurgy
Crushing of the Ore
 The big lumps of ore are crushed into smaller pieces with the help of jaw-crushers.
 The process of grinding the crushed ore into fine powder with the help of the stamp mills is
called pulverization.
Concentration or Ores:
 Removal of unwanted materials (e.g., sand. clays, etc.) from the ore is known as ore
concentration. It is also known as ore dressing or ore benefaction.
 It can be carried out by various ways depending upon the nature of the ore.
1. Hydraulic Washing
 This process is also known as Gravity Separation/Levigation.
 In this process, lighter earthy impurities are removed from the heavier ore particles by
washing with water. The lighter impurities are washed away.
 This method is based on the difference in the densities (specific gravities) of ore and
gangue.
 This method is commonly used for oxide ores such as haematite, tin stone and native ores
of Au, Ag, etc
2. Froth Floatation
 This method is used for the concentration of sulphide ores.
 This method is based on the preferential wetting of ore particles by oil and that of gangue
by water. As a result, the ore particles become light and rise to the top in the form of froth
while the gangue particles become heavy and settle down.
 Adsorption is involved in this method.
 In froth, collectors, stabilizers and depressants are added.
 Activators activate the floating property of one of the component of the ore and help in
the separation of different minerals present in the same ore e.g. CuSO4 is used as
activator.
 Depressants are used to prevent certain types of particles from forming the froth with air
bubbled, e.g., KCN and NaCN can be used as a depressant in the separation of ZnS and
PbS ores.
 Collectors increase the non-wet ability of ore particles by water, e.g., pine oils, xanthates
and fatty acids.
  Stabilizers which stabilizes froath e.g. cresols and aniline.

3. Magnetic separation
 This is based on differences in magnetic properties of the ore components.
 If either the ore or the gangue (one of these two) is capable of being attracted by a
magnetic field, then such separations are carried out by this method e.g., separation of
iron ores.
4. Electrostatic Separation
 This method is used for the separation of charged particles from uncharged particles.
 In this, particles are charged immediately in an electrostatic field and is thrown away
from the roller from which is not charged and hence they drops vertically from the roller.
 E.g. separation of lead sulphide (good conductor) from zinc sulphide (poor conductor)
particles.
5. Leaching:
 Leaching is the chemical process of separation in which the ore is concentrated by
chemical reaction with a suitable reagent which dissolves the ore but not the impurities,
e.g., leaching of alumina from bauxite.
 Bauxite contains SiO2, iron oxides and titanium oxide (TiO2) as impurities.
 In this process, bauxite is leached concentrated with a hot concentrated solution of NaOH
at 473-523 K and 35-36 bar pressure.
 Al2O3 is leached out as sodium aluminate leaving the impurities behind.
 The aluminates in solution are neutralized by passing CO2 gas and hydrated Al2O3 is
precipitated. At this stage, the solution is seeded with freshly prepared samples of
hydrated Al2O3 which induces the precipitation.
 The sodium silicate remains in the solution and hydrated alumina is filtered, dried and
heated to give back pure Al2O3. Ag and Au are also leached with a dilute aqueous
solution of NaCN or KCN in the presence of air.