The Engineering of Copper Extraction

Bill explains how copper — the backbone of our electrical infrastructure — is extracted from ore containing as little as half a percent copper by weight. He traces the history of copper demand, which exhausted the world's richest deposits and forced engineers to process ever-leaner ores. He explains how low-grade ores are pulverized and processed by froth flotation — a technique that exploits the natural surface chemistry of copper sulfide and silica particles, using air bubbles and a mole...