Industrial processes
_-_BEIC_6361475.jpg)
Steelworks of Italy in 1958, photo by Paolo Monti
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
This article is issued from
Wikipedia.
The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike.
Additional terms may apply for the media files.