reverberatory furnace

reverberatory furnace, in copper, tin, and nickel production, a furnace used for smelting or refining in which the fuel is not in direct contact with the ore but heats it by a flame blown over it from another chamber. In steelmaking, this process, now largely obsolete, is called the open-hearth process. The heat passes over the hearth, in which the ore is placed, and then reverberates back. The roof is arched, with the highest point over the firebox. It slopes downward toward a bridge of flues that deflect the flame so that it reverberates. The hearth is made dense and impervious so that the heavy matte, or molten impure metal, cannot penetrate into and through it, and the walls are made of a material that resists chemical attack by the slag. The process is continuous in the reverberatory furnace: ore concentrate is charged through openings in the roof; slag, which rises to the top, overflows continuously at one end; and the matte is tapped at intervals from the deepest part of the ore bath for transfer to a converter, where it is further refined.

Numerous technical innovations have improved the production capacity of this furnace, although its basic construction has remained the same. Roofs are made of refractory brick rather than the ordinary brick used earlier, and this has permitted higher temperatures and thus faster refining. Reverberatory smelting has recently been giving way to such newer processes as continuous smelting and the use of electric or flash furnaces.