Thermal treatment is the thermal cycle of heating carried out under pre-determined temperature and pressure conditions, followed by more or less slow cooling cycles, in order to make a metal or a metal alloy adopt the crystalline structure, which grants it particular mechanical and/or technological specifications.

Some examples of thermal treatment are: annealing, normalizing, hardening, tempering, quenching and tempering, induction hardening, case hardening, nitriding and nitro-carburizing.

Surface treatment is an industrial process (chemical, thermo-chemical, mechanical,…) necessary to treat previously cleaned and degreased metal surfaces in order to provide them special aesthetic features, oxidation resistance,  corrosion resistance and surface hardness.

Examples of surface treatments are: tumbling, polishing, cleaning, burnishing, phosphating, galvanizing, nickel plating, anodizing, chrome plating, sand-blasting, micro sand-blasting and coating.