Posted on 02/12/2015 10:48:03 AM PST by JimSEA
The link between volcanism and the formation of copper ore could lead to discovery of new copper deposits.
Copper has been in use for 6,000 years and it shows no signs of slowing down. The average home has about a hundred pounds of it and we are going to have more people and homes, not fewer. Volcanoes may be the answer.
A research team led by Professor Jon Blundy of University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, studied giant porphyry copper deposits of the variety that host 75 percent of the world's copper reserves. Copper forms in association with volcanoes such as those around the Pacific Ring of Fire but the nature of this association has never been entirely clear. Copper ore is predominantly in the form of copper-iron sulphides so an enduring problem has been how to simultaneously create enrichments in both copper and sulfur. Volcanoes rich in copper tend to be poor in sulfur and vice versa.
(Excerpt) Read more at science20.com ...
That was when the Copper became Oxygen Free.
One of the big fights, expenses in smelting sulfide ores, is scrubbing the SO2 out of the fumes. It did produce sulfuric acid but there’s not a big market, not enough to begin to cover the expense of the acid plant.
When copper pipe freezes it may stretch the pipe but still not leak when it thaws. It may freeze several times before it cracks and leaks. You can thaw copper or steel pipe by hooking an arc welder to the pipe.
I know there’s not much money in oleum; they sell it for about $5 / gallon for cleaning sewer pipes.
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