lead

The Doe Run Company’s Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling Division (SEMO) is responsible for locating and extracting lead ore, approximately 70 percent of the United States’ primary lead supply comes from SEMO’s six mines in Missouri.

The work takes place far below Earth’s surface, some 1,000 feet beneath the forested hills of southern Missouri. This area, rich in mineral deposits, is known as the Viburnum Trend.

While best known for having high-purity lead ore, SEMO also extracts zinc and copper minerals from its underground mines.

source: http://www.doerun.com/SEMO/tabid/94/language/en-US/Default.aspx

The Doe Run Company’s smelters are some of the largest and most productive facilities in the world, transforming mineral concentrates into usable metals and alloys. These products are used in radiation shielding, car batteries, TV screens and more.

Once lead concentrates are transported from the Doe Run mines to a smelter, they are sent through the sintering process, which uses a sinter machine to burn sulfur from the lead ore. The sinter is then conveyed into a blast furnace where it reaches molten-liquid form at approximately 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, becoming lead bullion.

From the furnace, the bullion runs out of a tap hole, like a faucet, into a “settler.” The settler allows the lead, the heaviest of the bullion’s components, to settle before coming out a lead well and dropping into lead pots. An overhead crane then picks up the lead pots and transports the bullion to a dross kettle, where impurities (namely copper) are removed.

The bullion is pumped to a refinery, where undesirable minerals still remaining in the bullion, such as silver and zinc, are extracted. The result: products that are 99.99 percent pure.

source: http://www.doerun.com/WHATWEDO/SMELTINGANDREFINING/tabid/73/language/en-US/Default.aspx

The Doe Run Company’s Resource Recycling Division operate the world’s largest recycling lead smelter (also called a secondary smelter).

The operation removes lead from lead-acid batteries, spent ammunition, lead-lined picture tubes and computer screens, and other lead-bearing material. The facility then recycles the lead into finished lead and lead alloy so it can be used as raw material in new products.

Additional materials, such as plastics recovered by the recycling process, are separated and sent to other recycling companies for further processing.

source: http://www.doerun.com/WHATWEDO/RECYCLING/tabid/74/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Fabricated Products, Inc. (FPI), a wholly owned subsidiary of The Doe Run Company, takes lead and creates items that are useful, protective and technologically advanced. For example, FPI makes radiation shielding for hospitals and cancer-treatment facilities, produces lead-lined sheet rock and plywood, creates sheet lead for roof flashings and develops specially extruded shapes for the plating and pollution control industries and lead oxide for batteries. FPI has locations in Vancouver, Wash. and Casa Grande, Ariz.

source: http://www.doerun.com/WHATWEDO/FABRICATEDPRODUCTS/tabid/75/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Seafab Metals Corporation, based in Casa Grande, Ariz., was acquired by Doe Run’s subsidiary Fabricated Products, Inc. in 1996. The next year Seafab divided its business into two segments and moved each operation closer to major customers. The oxide manufacturing operation for lead-acid batteries transferred to Vancouver, Wash., and the fabricated metal segment relocated to Casa Grande, Ariz., producing rolled, cast and extruded lead products for various industries.

Seafab currently produces sheet lead for roof flashings; lead shield used to block sound waves, x-rays and nuclear radiation; plates for lead anodes needed in the copper refining process; raw and semi-finished bullet materials; and specialty extruded shapes for the plating and pollution control industries. The company also markets materials produced at Doe Run’s Herculaneum and Resource Recycling facilities.

source: http://www.doerun.com/SEAFAB/tabid/98/language/en-US/Default.aspx