Pergamon 0892--6875(98)00117--4 Minerals Engineering, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 15-41, 1999 © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd All fights reserved 0892-6875/99/$ -- see front matter ON THE SYNTHESIS OF INORGANIC CHEMICAL AND METALLURGICAL PROCESSES. REVIEW AND EXTENSION L.A. CISTERNAS Departamento de Ingenierfa Qufmica, Universidad de Antofagasta, Casilla 170, Antofagasta, Chile E-mail: lcisternas@uantof.cl (Received 12 March 1998; accepted I September 1998) ABSTRACT A review and extension of process synthesis principles to inorganic chemicals and extractive metallurgical operations is presented. It is shown that the conceptualization of extractive metallurgy and inorganic chemical processes can be improved upon by the development of specific methodologies. The major issues analyzed are: 1) reaction path, 2) mineral processing circuit synthesis, 3) separation path using fractional crystallisation, 4) waste minimization and mass-exchange networks, 5) selection of mineral processing routes, and 6) synthesis of chemical induced separation. It is shown that there is a lack of methods for inorganic chemical and extractive metallurgy process synthesis, and that process synthesis has not found the place it deserves among the techniques used in inorganic chemical and extractive metallurgical operations. Research efforts conducted during the last few years, however, are a good beginning in the efforts to change this. A number of ideas are given to illustrate the potential applicability of process synthesis to this area. Several articles cited in this paper have been chosen from the chemical engineering literature which represent advances of particular interest in the inorganic chemical and extractive metallurgy process synthesis. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Keywords Process synthesis; process optimisation; extractive metallurgy; mineral processing INTRODUCTION Advancement in the metal-extraction and inorganic chemical industries depends in part on the development of new processes of extraction as well as on the improvement of those already existing. Advances are made when synthesis and analysis are used in several steps to generate alternatives by which the more promising option is selected. Process synthesis has been widely studied and used by the organic chemical industry. However, these advancements cannot be easy applied to the synthesis of extractive metallurgy and inorganic chemical 15