This process is used for refining easily fusible metals like lead and tin. The impure metal is heated on the sloped hearth of a reverberatory furnace. The metal melts and flows down leaving the impurities.

Liquation is a metallurgical method for separating metals from an ore or alloy. The material must be heated until one of the metals starts to melt and drain away from the other and can be collected. This method was largely used to remove lead containing silver from copper, but it can also be used to remove antimony minerals from ore, and refine tin.

Liquation is used to purify metals having lower melting point than impurities present in them. For example, Pb, Sn, Sb, Bi and Hg.