After obtaining Master degree in Metallurgical Engineering, Shamsuddin joined the Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Banaras Hindu University as a Lecturer in 1970 and was subsequently promoted to the post of Reader and Professor in 1979 and 1987, respectively. He was awarded PhD in 1974 and spent three years (1978 - 1981) in the United States, one year each at the University of Chicago, University of Utah, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His field of specialization has been Metallurgical Thermodynamics and Chemical-Extractive Metallurgy. He has conducted extensive studies on thermodynamic properties of semiconducting intermetallics, binary and ternary alloy systems. In extractive metallurgy area he has been involved in studies on roasting, leaching and sulfide-oxide interactions. Thermodynamic data published by him are widely referred. A few measures of the recognition of his outstanding contributions include the Pandya Medal, INSA Young Scientist Award, Visiting Associate Professor at MIT, Best Metallurgists Award: Government of India, and MRSI Medal. After retirement from the faculty in June 2010, he has concentrated his efforts on publishing books on Chemical-Extractive Metallurgy and Thermodynamics, based on his 50 years of academic experiences in these fields.

Updates and condenses text throughout the book by sequential arrangement of paragraphs in different chapters;

Maximizes readers' understanding of the physicochemical principles involved in extraction/production of common and rare/reactive metals by pyro- as well as hydrometallurgical routes;

Reinforces concepts presented with worked examples in each chapter explaining the process steps

Explains the physical chemistry of various metallurgical steps, such as roasting, matte smelting/converting, and reduction smelting, steelmaking, aqueous processing etc. in extraction of metals;

Collects and uniformly presents scattered information on physicochemical principles of metal production from various books and journals