Gold Refining Step by Step Process: A Useful Discussion
Introduction to Gold Refining
Table of contents
Gold refining is a group of processes to pull out and set the precious metal apart from recycled elements (such as electronics and jewelry), mined materials, etc. The two most popular refining techniques to extract pure gold include the Wohlwill process and the Miller process.
Whereas the Miller process produces around 99.5% of pure gold, the Wohlwill process has managed to enhance the purity up to 99.99%.
The Miller process makes use of gaseous chlorine to separate the precious metal from impurities when it is at the melting point. It is a simple and fast technique to extract gold.
When it comes to the Wohlwill process, gold chloride and hydrochloric acid are used as an electrolyte solution. Moreover, an electric current also contributes to extracting pure gold.
There are many gold refining services available in the USA. When it comes to gold refining, many refineries are there. Jewelers, miners, dentists, industrial firms can expect to fulfill all the precious metal refining requirements. One can expect to get recycling services for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from gold refining companies.
Importance of Gold Refining
Many people sell their old jewelry sets or scrap gold. But, do you know how the buyer makes use of these jewelry pieces or gold fragments? How these gold pieces are useful or what happens to them once someone sells his/her gold?
It may be surprising that gold jewelry is not 100% pure gold. Hence, a gold refiner comes to the scene to analyze the material to find out the exact percentage of pure gold.
Most manufacturers do not use pure gold in making jewelry sets due to the softness of pure gold. A jewelry piece needs to be durable enough to survive longer.
Hence, other metals, such as copper, silver, palladium, or platinum contribute to increasing the durability of the jewelry set. Mixing of gold with the above metals produces gold alloy. Most manufacturers use it to create all types of gold commodities, including jewelry and coins.
In short, the gold refining process calculates the amount of pure gold and alloy metals. Karat is a measurement unit to indicate how much pure gold is present in an alloy. For instance, 24-karat gold indicates pure gold, and 18-karat gold indicates 18 parts of pure gold and 6 parts of another alloy.
Gold is not available in its purest form. It needs extraction from its parent rock after miners mine it from several hundred meters underground. Since gold achieved by mining is not pure, gold refining companies help to remove impurities and extract gold in its pure form.
One should refrain from gold refining at home, as it can pose dangerous effects. Moreover, it may not produce the intended results. A trained expert can take care of the process with advanced gold refining machines and tools.
Gold Refining: The Steps
Do you wonder how to refine gold? People use different methods and techniques to refine the precious metal. It is time to check the steps of raw gold discovering and refining:
Discovering the Gold Deposits:
Refining raw gold starts from discovering the gold by miners. Geologists make use of specific maps to search for potential areas with gold deposits. They also consider various natural formations, such as rocks to conclude whether gold can be present under the earth.
Examining the Locations:
After geologists discover a potential gold deposit location, performing several tests, such as remote sensing, geophysics, and geochemistry are essential to confirm the prediction.
Testing the Spots:
Geologists collect rock samples via a drilling method. Next, they start analyzing the samples. As a result, they can confirm whether gold is present below the ground in that spot. The next step is about deciding the type of mine.
Making the Infrastructure:
Miners can start the mining operation once all the preparation tasks get completed. However, proper infrastructure is essential for mining. It includes roads as well as processing provisions. Mining in remote areas needs offices and storage provisions.
Getting More Samples:
When the location is ready to start the operation, workers take samples and send them to engineers to find out the accurate metallurgic standards of the respective gold deposits.
Finishing On-Site Processing:
Gold remains in its raw form after its extraction from the mine. Further processing is needed to receive pure gold.
The first step is to crush the parent rock. Next, the pieces go through multiple processes. It depends on the types of minerals and materials combined with the respective gold ore. The goal of these steps is to extract the gold from all these elements.
However, complexity differs in different on-site processing operations. It partly depends on the standard of the gold ore. The higher the standard of the ore, the complexity becomes higher.
Finishing Off-Site Refining:
Once the on-site processing gets completed, people transfer the gold to an off-site refinery. It is about making the gold go through additional refining. The process eliminates the remaining impurities (if any) from the gold.
The raw gold experiences a melting process and treatment with chloride. As a result, any impurities remaining with gold convert into chloride, which automatically gets removed from the gold. The result would be 99.5% to 99.99 pure gold.
The final step is about reclaiming the gold mine.
What is the Process of Scrap Gold Refining?
The fire assay method is the most popular technique when it comes to gold refining. It is a genuine, industry-standard method with multiple steps. However, the effort and time devoted to the process pay off later. The process is 20 times more correct than other processes.
Although it is the most applied method for gold refining, it can take considerable time. Moreover, the method must be done with accuracy, as there are many scopes to make mistakes and wrong calculations. Hence, only experts can complete the fire assay process with the ace.
Experts often mold newly refined gold straight into gold bars. It is because gold in this form is easy to store, move, and mark, as per the karat and weight.
Wrapping Up
In short, gold refining is a costly process and it’s not an easy process whether it is about handling raw gold or scrap gold. Only experienced professionals can cater to all gold refining related requirements with the ace.