Industries form the backbone of any economy and it is these industries that bring to a common layman the basic commodities of living. These industries are comprised of industrial processes and activities which are the key for effective and quality production of end products. This article details what industrial processes are and the various types of industrial processes.
What is an Industrial Process?
Processes and procedures in a large scale that involve chemical or mechanical steps aiding them in manufacture of a specific item or items is known as an Industrial Process. These processes become the key components of heavy industries.
Benefits of Industrial Processes
The industrial processes often contribute to the conversion of a rare and costly material into a commodity cheaper in price. Thus the economical feasibility of the society to use the costly material on a large scale is increased by means of industrial processes. There are many kinds of industrial processes and most of the times, more than one is used in the production of a single material.
Result of Industrial Processes
The industrial processes often end in production of a desired product though it also creates certain unnecessary by-products which maybe toxic, hazardous and hard to manage with. There are very few processes which are controlled and self-contained.
Types of Industrial Processes
There are many kinds of Industrial processes and are listed as follows:
1. General Processes – General processes are used by large in almost all the heavy industries. Examples of such process include liquefaction of gases, freeze drying or scrubber. Liquefaction of gases is used for easy transportation between one part to the other while freeze drying or supercritical drying involves in removal of excess liquid. Scrubber is another industrial general process which is used for removing pollutants from the exhaust gas that is created.
2. Chemical Processes – Chemical processes involve those methods or mean that includes the change of chemicals from one to another. It is used at large to change chemicals or materials by use of chemicals. Certain popular methods include smelting, disinfection and pyro-processing. Smelting includes the enhancement of metals by use of chemical substances.
Disinfection is another chemical process where chemicals are used to kill bacteria and viruses. Pyro-processing is the process in which heat is used to chemically combine the materials. Cement is one of the materials that are combined by means of Pyro-processing methods.
3. Heat Processes – In these kinds of industrial processes, heat or direct current is used in the production or materials. Flash smelting and Electrolysis are methods that use heat processes for producing the end products.
Flash Smelting is a refinement of the smelting process and is used predominantly for sulphur ores to produce copper, nickel and lead. Electrolysis is the process in which electricity is used to produce desired effect of plating or separating metals. Electrolysis can be of many ways, electro-focussing, electro-polishing, anodization, electro-plating, electro-phoretic deposition, etc.
4. Physical Processes – Metals and materials are reshaped and moulded into various products by means of certain procedures like cutting, folding, polishing, etc. These procedures constitute the physical processes that are used in industries. Techniques like forging, casting, machining, progressive stamping, sandblasting, soldering etc. are few of the available physical processes used in industries.
To explain about them, forging is the shaping of metals by using hammer and heat. Casting is a physical process that is used for liquid materials where it is set into moulds of desired shapes and let to solidify. Machining is the mechanical cutting and shaping of metals while progressive stamping is the production of components from a strip or roll.
Hydroforming is a process in which a tube of metal is expanded into a mould and modified under pressure and Sandblasting is the physical cleaning process of a surface by means of sand or other particles.
5. Distillation – Components like petroleum and hydrocarbon by-products are produced by the industrial process of distillation.
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