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

See also

• Chemical engineering
• Mass production