Metallurgy is the art and science that deals in extracting metals from their ores, alloying and getting the impurities of the metal and transform the metals to a more useful object. It is also the study of metals, its physical and chemical properties, the atomic structure and the process on how to combine to produce an alloy.

There are two phases to extract the metal from its ore; this includes mineral processing and process metallurgy. During the mineral processing, desired broken elements are extracted from the broken ore. The minerals are created to produce an alloy and metal to a more useful form during the metallurgy process.

Metallurgy is divided into two processes, the process metallurgy and the physical metallurgy. Process metallurgy includes the system metal processing while in physical metallurgy includes the mechanical behavior of the metals.

The process metallurgy uses the some method in chemical engineering in the construction of metals. There are two major steps in the production of metal. First is the production of a tainted metal from ore, and second is the refining of the metal.

Physical metallurgy is concerned with the scientific principle to the heat treatment, mechanical treatment, fabrication and service behavior of metals.

The process to extract the metal from the elements will depend upon the combination of the substance found in the ore and the elements of the metal to be remove. Since silver and gold is mercury soluble, mercury is used to extract silver and gold from other elements. The other way to extract the two compounds from other substance is by the treatment called cyanide process. To separate silver from lead elements, parkes process is being used. Chemical reactions are needed to separate metals from other elements

Electrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy are the classification of chemical process. Electrometallurgy used electrolysis to separate other elements from metal. Hydrometallurgy also called as leaching, uses selective suspension. And pyrometallurgy, uses heat treatment solution.