What is Calcination and Roasting?

Calcination and Roasting are the processes of refining pure metals from their ores. These two processes are used for different types of ores and in different conditions. Let’s learn them in detail below:

Calcination Definition

The process of converting ore into oxide by heating it strongly either in absence of air or in limited supply of air is known as Calcination. It is a thermal process that is used to convert ores and other solid materials by thermal decomposition. It is mainly used to convert carbonates and hydroxides to their respective oxides. During this process, the reaction mostly occurs at or above the thermal decomposition temperature. Moreover, moisture and volatile impurities are also removed in this process. Hence, it is sometimes considered as a process of purification. The products derived from calcination are known as calcining.

Roasting Definition

The process of converting ore into oxide by heating it at a temperature below its melting point in presence of air is known as Roasting. It is mainly carried out for sulphide minerals. It consists of solid-gas thermal reaction which includes oxidation, reduction, sulfation, chlorination and pyro hydrolysis. During this process, moisture and non-metallic impurities are released in the form of volatile gases. Roasting is not preferred as it results in the release of toxic gases and compounds that are acidic in nature. All this results in degradation of air quality and contributes to pollution.

Calcination and Roasting are two processes of refining carbonate and sulfide metal ores respectively into pure metal forms. Minerals are naturally occurring chemical substances in the Earth’s crust that are obtained by mining. Metals that are known to us are derived from some of these minerals and such minerals are known as ores.

The science that deals with extracting metals from ores is known as metallurgy. There are many ways by which metals are extracted from its ore and one such process to extract crude metal from its concentrated ore is conversion to oxide which is further divided into Calcination and Roasting. In this article, we briefly discuss calcination and roasting and the difference between calcination and roasting.