Gold mining is one of the dirtiest industries in the world, producing toxins like mercury, lead, arsenic, and selenium. Furthermore, when gold is extracted, it is sprayed with cyanide. Just a small amount of cyanide is enough to kill a human. And in the mining process, only 0.00001 percent of the ore is actually refined into gold. The rest is merely waste.
One way to help reduce waste and make the gold industry more eco-friendly is to use gold recycling. Many gold refiners and precious metal refiners are jumping on board this new green train. Certain businesses will buy unwanted or broken jewelry and refine it into gold that can be used in new products. Typically, the scrap metal is weighed and entered into a computerized refining system. The scrap is smelted--mixed with a flux and melted. The flux lowers the melting point of the gold and makes it more fluid and well mixed.
Next, the melted gold is poured into a bar or bullion mold. The bullions are then weighed and sampled. These samples are fire assayed (which means put through a miniature refining process) in order to determine the precious metal content. Once the assay process is completed, the metal is ready for full refining.
In the "Miller method," the bullions are melted in a furnace, and chlorine gas is bubbled through the liquid; this changes silver and base metals to solid chlorides which float on top of the liquid metal. The chlorides are removed and refined a second time in order to regain any silver content.
When the refining process is finished, the remaining metal is about 98% pure gold. It's next cast into anodes and submerged into a gold-based solution. This is known as electrolytical refinement. In this process, any fine or 24-carat gold is plated on the cathode. Any platinum or palladium will remain in the solution and can later be recovered.
New column refining systems are being used to refine the platinum and palladium. The metals are placed in columns and sent through a "digestion" process. Column refining is a closed system, making it safe for workers.
These kinds of processes substantially reduce waste; the chlorine gas can even be filtered out by an air control system--making the gold refinery process even more environmentally friendly. Furthermore, the refined gold, palladium, and platinum are sold to jewelry manufacturers and then used in a variety of forms: castings, findings, mill products, and finished jewelry. These all came from used gold, making them the products of an eco-friendly recycling system.
Author Resource:
Ross Metals (http://www.rossmetals.com/) provide the highest quality precious metal refiners in the industry, all guaranteed to meet or exceed "The U.S. Stamping Act" for karat accuracy and requirements. Art Gib is a freelance writer.Distributed by Content Crooner
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