Industrial processes
Industrial processes are procedures involving chemical, physical, electrical or mechanical steps to aid in the manufacturing of an item or items, usually carried out on a very large scale. Industrial processes are the key components of heavy industry.
Chemical processes
- Smelting – extracting metals from ores
- Haber process – chemically binding gaseous nitrogen from the atmosphere to make ammonia
- Disinfection – chemical treatment to kill bacteria and viruses
- Pyroprocessing – using heat to chemically combine materials, such as in cement.
Electrolysis
- Gilding, electroplating, anodization, electrowinning – depositing a material on an electrode
- Electropolishing – the reverse of electroplating
- Electrofocusing – similar to electroplating, but separating molecules
- Electrolytic process – the generic process of using electrolysis
- Electrophoretic deposition – electrolytic deposition of colloidal particles in a liquid medium
- Electrotyping – using electroplating to produce printing plates
- Metallizing, plating, spin coating – the generic terms for giving non-metals a metallic coating
Cutting
- Shearing
- Sawing
- Plasma cutting
- Water-jet cutting - cutting materials using a very high-pressure jet of water
- Oxyacetylene cutting
- Electrical discharge machining
- Machining – the mechanical cutting and shaping of metal which involves the loss of the material
- Laser cutting
Metalworking
- Smelting and direct Reduction – extracting metals from ores.
- Forging – the shaping of metal by use of heat and hammer
- Casting – shaping of a liquid material by pouring it into moulds and letting it solidify
- Steelmaking — turning "pig iron" from smelting into steel
- Progressive stamping – the production of components from a strip or roll
- Stamping
- Hydroforming – a tube of metal is expanded into a mould under pressure
- Sandblasting – cleaning of a surface using sand or other particles
- Soldering, brazing, welding – a process for joining metals
- Tumble polishing – for polishing
- Precipitation hardening – heat treatment used to strengthen malleable materials
- Work hardening – adding strength to metals, alloys, etc.
- Case hardening, differential hardening, shot peening – creating a wear-resistant surface
- Die cutting – A "forme" or "die" is pressed onto a flat material in order to cut, score, punch and otherwise shape the material
- Electric arc furnace — very-high-temperature processing
Moulding
- Casting, sand casting – the shaping of molten metal or plastics using a mould
- Sintering, powder metallurgy – the making of objects from metal or ceramic powder
- Blow molding as in plastic containers or in the glass container industry – making hollow objects by blowing them into a mould.
- Compression molding
Separation
- Comminution – reduces the size of physical particles
- Froth flotation, flotation process – separating minerals through flotation
- Liquid–liquid extraction – dissolving one substance in another
- Frasch process – for extracting molten sulfur from the ground
Distillation
- Fractional distillation, steam distillation, vacuum distillation
- Batch distillation
- Continuous distillation
- Fractionating column
- Spinning cone
Additive manufacturing
- Fused deposition modeling
- Stereolithography
- Selective laser sintering
- Photolithography
Petroleum and organic compounds
- Cracking – the generic term for breaking up the larger molecules
- Alkylation – refining of crude oil
- Burton process – cracking of hydrocarbons
- Cumene process – making phenol and acetone from benzene
- Friedel-Crafts reaction, Kolbe-Schmitt reaction
- Olefin metathesis, thermal depolymerization
- Transesterification – organic chemicals
- Raschig process for production of hydroxylamine – part of the process to produce nylon
- Oxo process – Produces aldehydes from alkenes
- Polymerisation
Others
- Aluminium –
- Ammonia, used in fertilizer & explosives –
- Bromine –
- Chlorine, used in chemicals –
- Fat –
- Fertilizer –
- Glass –
- Gold –
- Graphite –
- Heavy water, used to refine radioactive products –
- Hydrogen –
- Lead –
- Nickel –
- Nitric acid –
- Paper –
- Rubber –
- Salt –
- Semiconductor crystals –
- Silver –
- Silicon carbide –
- Sodium carbonate, used for soap –
- Sulfuric acid –
- Titanium –
- Zirconium –
- Alberger process, Grainer evaporation process – produces salt from brine
- Bacterial oxidation – used to produce gold
- Bayer process – the extraction of aluminium from ore
- Chloralkali process, Weldon process – for producing chlorine and sodium hydroxide
- Crystal bar process, iodide process – produces zirconium
- Dow process – produces bromine from brine
- FFC Cambridge Process
- Girdler sulfide process – for making heavy water
- Hunter process, Kroll process – produces titanium and zirconium
- Industrial rendering – the separation of fat from bone and protein
- Lead chamber process, contact process – production of sulfuric acid
- Mond process – nickel
- Nitrophosphate process – a number of similar process for producing fertilizer
- Ostwald process – produces nitric acid
- Packaging
- Pidgeon process – produces magnesium, reducing the oxide using silicon
- Steam reforming, water gas shift reaction – produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide from methane or hydrogen and carbon dioxide from water and carbon monoxide
- Vacuum metalising – a finishing process
- Perstorp Formox process – oxidation of methanol to produce formaldehyde