New York Paper - Pyritic Smelting and Basic Converting at the Kosaka Copper Smelter, Japan (with Discussion)

The Kosaka smelter is situated in the extreme northern end of Hondo (the main island of Japan) 15 mi. east of Odate, on the government railroad, to which it is connected by a private railway. It contains ten blast furnaces having a maximum daily capacity of 1600 short tons of ore, conducting a slow pyritic smelting entirely without coke or limestone, and with a charge carrying over 50 per cent. of briquetted and agglomerated fines. The matte (35 per cent. Cu) is blown in two basic-lined barrel converters, the blister copper (98.8 per cent. Cu) being cast at once into anodes. The adjoining refinery contains 600 tanks with a maximum capacity of 1300 tons of cathodes per month, the byproducts being gold, silver, and bismuth. At present, working at about half capacity, the whole plant consumes 2000 kw. of hydro-electric power, and employs 850 men and women. The ores are derived from two principal sources: The relatively new Hanaoka mine, 20 mi. from the smelter, yielding copper pyrites by underground mining, and the old Kosaka open-cut mine, 1 1/2 mi. from the smelter, yielding three different ores: (a) kuromono, a compact finegrained mixture of barite (32 per cent.), zinc blende, galena, and pyrite, the whole carrying about 2.5 per cent. Cu; (6) cupriferous pyrites with 2.4 per cent. Cu; (c) siliceous ore with 2 per cent. Cu. The Hanaoka ore now constitutes approximately one-half of the charge, almost replacing the Kosaka kuromono which was the ore chiefly smelted until 1913.'