Roasted copper ore is then mixed with coke & sand particles & then strongly heated at about 13500 C in a water jacketed blast furnace. At high temperature ferrous sulphide (FeS) is oxidised & converted into ferrous oxide (FeO) which further reacts with sand particles to form a fusible slag (FeSiO3)
Further cuprous oxide (Cu2O) formed during roasting combines with ferrous sulphide (FeS) to form ferrous oxide ( FeO ) & cuprous sulphide (Cu2S). The ferrous oxide ( FeO ) formed futher react with silica particals to form slag.
Thus during smelting process most of the ferrous sulphide impurity is converted into the fusible slag (FeSiO3)which is then removed from the upper slag outlet. The molten mass containing mostly cuprous sulphide (Cu2S) & little quantity of ferrous sulphide (FeS) is called as matte which is then removed from the lower outlet.