China is one of the earliest countries to smelt and use copper. The following belongs to the traditional wet copper smelting.

China's ancient copper smelting method in the Western Han Dynasty. The main reaction principle is that iron replaces copper sulfate to produce copper and ferrous sulfate. Wet copper smelting is a reaction between iron and copper sulfate, which may be impure and form a mixture of iron and copper. The chemical formula is: Fe+CuSO4=Cu+FeSO4.

That is, metal+salt = another metal+another salt. This way of smelting copper is displacement reaction (the conditions of displacement reaction are: activity: the metal participating in the reaction is greater than the metal element in the compound.

Pyrometallurgical copper smelting is different from wet copper smelting. Pyrometallurgical copper smelting is a process in which copper-containing oxides (generally copper oxide powder for laboratory use and malachite as the main component of industrial basic copper carbonate) react with reducing agents (generally hydrogen or carbon monoxide) at a higher temperature (usually above 500 degrees Celsius) to generate elemental copper. Because this reduction reaction needs a certain temperature and must be heated to produce elemental copper, it is called pyrometallurgical copper smelting. Wet copper smelting is a process of making copper simple substance from the solution of active metal (metal with stronger activity than copper except potassium, calcium and sodium, usually iron) and soluble copper salt (copper nitrate, copper sulfate, copper chloride and other salts, usually copper sulfate). Because the reaction is carried out in solution and does not need heating, it is called wet copper smelting. Pyrometallurgical copper smelting and hydrometallurgical copper smelting are two important means to produce copper.