I am involved in an extractive metallurgy project 1 day per week give or take. So I have been trying to take apart undesirable minerals in an ore to concentrate the desired metal. It’s called beneficiation- a word introduced by Agricola in his book De Re Metallica published in 1556. I can’t disclose what the desired metal is. Suffice it to say that it is rather scarce though not a coinage metal.
What really amazes me is the disconnect between what many of us think of as the field of inorganic chemistry and the field of extractive metallurgy. In my training as an organikker, I had never been exposed to extractive metallurgy, nor did I even know what it was. Turns out that it is a field of applied inorganic chemistry. In this field, a metallurgist is the person who figures out how to extract desired metals from ore. Nobody seems to call them a chemist, at least to their face. They’re the metallurgist. No doubt there are exceptions.
Well, that clears things up quite a bit. I feel better getting that off my chest. I’m sure any wayward metallurgist who happens upon this site has already begun to laugh. Extractive metallurgists do synthetic inorganic chemistry. It’s just that they prefer to keep company with a gangue of engineers and geologists rather than those who don’t work with minerals. I can relate.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
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March 20, 2011 at 5:44 pm
bmo
A metallurgist myself (or metallurgical engineer), I have long enjoyed reading this site. My work is largely confined to the top of the periodic table and as the extractive metallurgy of these base metals in northern, sulphidic deposits is well established, pure chemistry is less my concern than processing issues, equipment design, and plant operation. I only prefer to keep company with engineers and geologists because my knowledge of synthetic and analytical chemistry is rapidly approaching zero.
October 27, 2011 at 7:56 am
alloys
This is fascinating. At the end of the day all are working with different materials. So essentially work is similar. You have some interesting ideas on this blog and I’ve enjoyed reading them and will continue to do so.