List of 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.
General processes
These may be applied on their own, or as part of a larger process.
- Liquefaction of gases - for ease of transportation
- Supercritical drying, freeze-drying - removal of excess liquid
- Scrubbing - removal of pollution from exhaust gases
Chemical processes
- Haber process - chemically binding gaseous nitrogen from the atmosphere to make ammonia
- Smelting - chemically enhancing metals
- Disinfection - chemical treatment to kill bacteria and viruses
- Pyroprocessing - using heat to chemically combine materials, such as in cement.
Heat processes
- Flash smelting - a refinement on smelting, for sulfur-containing ores (produces copper, nickel and lead)
Electrolysis
The availability of electricity and its effect on materials gave rise to several processes for plating or separating metals.
- 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
- Oxyacetylene cutting
- Electrical discharge machining (EDM)
- Machining - the mechanical cutting and shaping of metal which involves the loss of the material
- Laser cutting
Physical processes
There are several physical processes for reshaping a material by cutting, folding, joining or polishing, developed on a large scale from workshop techniques.
- 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
- 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
Moulding
The physical shaping of materials by forming their liquid form using a mould.
- 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 moulding as in plastic containers or in the glass container industry - making hollow objects by blowing them into a mould.
- Compression molding
Separation
Many materials exist in an impure form, purification, or separation provides a usable product.
- Comminution - reduces the size of physical particles (it exists between crushing and grinding)
- 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 - separating materials by their boiling point
- Batch distillation
- Continuous distillation
- Fractionating column
- Spinning cone
Additive
- Fused deposition modeling (FDM)
- Stereolithography (SLA)
- Selective laser sintering (SLS)
- Photolithography
Iron and steel
Early production of iron was from meteorites, or as a by-product of copper refining.
- Smelting - the generic process used in furnaces to produce steel, copper, etc.
- Catalan forge, open hearth furnace, bloomery, Siemens regenerative furnace - produced wrought iron
- Blast furnace - produced cast iron
- Direct Reduction - produced direct reduced iron
- Crucible steel
- Cementation process
- Bessemer process
- Basic oxygen steelmaking, Linz-Donawitz process
- Electric arc furnace
Petroleum and organic compounds
The nature of an organic molecule means it can be transformed at the molecular level to create a range of products.
- Cracking (chemistry) - 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 - part of the process to produce nylon
- Oxo process - Produces aldehydes from alkenes
- Polymerisation
Others
Organized by product:
- Aluminium - (Deville process, Bayer process, Hall-Héroult process, Wöhler process)
- Ammonia, used in fertilizer & explosives - (Haber process)
- Bromine - (Dow process)
- Chlorine, used in chemicals - (chloralkali process, Weldon process, Hooker process)
- Fat - (rendering)
- Fertilizer - (nitrophosphate process)
- Glass - (Pilkington process)
- Gold - (bacterial oxidation, Parkes process)
- Graphite - (Acheson process)
- Heavy Water, used to refine radioactive products - (Girdler sulfide process)
- Hydrogen - (steam reforming, water gas shift reaction)
- Lead (and Bismuth) - (Betts electrolytic process, Betterton-Kroll process)
- Nickel - (Mond process)
- Nitric acid - (Ostwald process)
- Paper - (pulping, Kraft process, Fourdrinier machine)
- Rubber - (vulcanization)
- Salt - (Alberger process, Grainer evaporation process)
- Semiconductor crystals - (Bridgeman technique, Czochralski process)
- Silver - (Patio process, Parkes process)
- Silicon Carbide - (Acheson process, Lely process)
- Sodium carbonate, used for soap - (Leblanc process, Solvay process, Leblanc-Deacon process)
- Sulfuric acid - (lead chamber process, contact process)
- Titanium - (Hunter process, Kroll process)
- Zirconium - (Hunter process, Kroll process, crystal bar process, iodide process)
A list by process:
- 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
- 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