pyrometallurgy

[pahy-ruh-met-l-ur-jee]

noun

1. the process or technique of refining ores with heat so as to accelerate chemical reactions or to melt the metallic or nonmetallic content.

pyrometallurgy

/ ˌpaɪrəʊmɛˈtælədʒɪ, -ˈmɛtəˌlɜːdʒɪ /

noun

1. the branch of metallurgy involving processes performed at high temperatures, including sintering, roasting, smelting, casting, refining, alloying, and heat treatment

Other Word Forms

• pyrometallurgical adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of pyrometallurgy¹

First recorded in 1905–10; pyro- + metallurgy

Example Sentences

But unlike pyrometallurgy, the heating is incredibly brief—typically a few hundred milliseconds.

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Pyrometallurgy, in which preprocessed waste material is heated to extremely high temperatures—often upwards of 1,000 °C—to burn away plastics and other unwanted materials and yield a mixed fraction of molten precious metals that can then be purified.

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It's potentially a more sustainable method of recovering nickel than traditional techniques such as pyrometallurgy, which Dr O'Connor says is not an environmentally-friendly process.

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“The U.S. doesn’t make much cathode domestically, so if we use hydrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy we have to send the recycled materials to other countries to be turned into cathode and shipped back to us,” Spangenberger said.

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Pyrometallurgy refers to the extraction of metals using high heat in blast furnaces, which analysts say is not economic.

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