What is Gold Refining?
Have you ever heard of the term gold refining? Do you know what it means? If not, then you have come to the right page where you will know some information of what gold refining is, what is its use, and what can it do in our industry. Gold refining is actually the last stage of processing gold. Gold is a precious metal that is used to making fine jewelry, coins, and more. Refining the gold involves taking away all of the excess impurities that will leave the gold to its purest form. This happens when the gold is melted. During the molting process, gold refiners will try to remove impurities as well as other metals (semi-precious) that are mixed with gold, by using soda ash and borax, which they normally add in the melted gold. These chemicals have the ability to separate gold from other metals and impurities, so that the end product will be at least 99.9% gold.
The next process that will happen after gold refining, will actually depend on how this precious metal will be used. If for instance that gold is going to be used to make fine jewelry, gold in its purest form might not be a good fit, since 99.9% gold is too soft, which will not be able hold precious or semi-precious stones or will not be able to hold its form, after the final detailing of the goldsmith.
So what goldsmiths do when using gold to make fine jewelry, is to turn it into an alloy, which means they will be mixing different metals to turn it into different colored gold.
Just to give you an example, the very popular white gold that is normally used for engagement rings, is a mixture of nickel and gold. Sometimes, they also use silver to make white gold, but most of the time, goldsmiths will use nickel, due to its nice combination with gold.
Gold are also measured depending on its Karatage. The higher the gold content is than the mixed metal, the higher the karat is. Preference for gold karat somehow depends from culture to culture. For instance, People in India would like their gold to be at least 91.75% pure, which is 22 karats. But people in the United States prefer 14 to 18K gold because gold at this form provides nice durability, hardiness that cannot be dent, and affordability too. So what do we do? Our core business is producing unique gold refining systems, refining gold at either low or high karats. With our 50 years of experience and unique technology, it's highly probable that the gold inside the electronic device you are currently using to read this article has been refined by EMAK systems.
The Different Benefits of Gold Recycling
If you think that the only recyclable materials are plastic and paper, then you are wrong. Did you know that even the precious metals including gold should also be recycled?
There are actually many reasons why we should consider gold recycling. Just to mention a few are:
- Recycling gold will actually preserve our natural resource of it, because people will be able to reuse their old gold, and turn it into something that is up to date. For example, instead of stocking up your gold jewelry inside the box, because the style is not ‘in’ anymore, why not have it melted and turn it into something that is trendy nowadays?
- People who recycle gold will be able to save up on their gold expense, since gold proves to be a precious metal whose price increases in time.
- You can also recycle your old gold pieces, by selling them in pawnshops and companies who buys rummaged gold, and get cash in exchange. You can use that cash to buy a new set of jewelry, or buy something else that you like.
These are the different benefits that you can get, if you recycle gold.
When it comes specifically to gold, EMAK manufactures systems that recycle both gold scraps (we call this jewelry waste) and gold itself with zero loss, refining it to the purity level you desire (in karats). You can check our "Gold Refining Systems" page for our gold purification (refining) machines and our "Jewelry Waste Recycling" page for gold and jewelry waste recycling.
However, precious metals are certainly not limited to gold. Let's take a closer look.
Precious Metal Recovery
When you talk about the precious metal recovery then it means that you are talking about reclaiming the valuable metal from scrap material. Many valuable metal recovery service providers use excellent techniques to extract metals like platinum, silver and gold etc. By using these processes you can extract non-ferrous-metals from wires tubes, dishoarded bars and industrial scraps.
These services are mostly used in industries like jewelry, aerospace, medical and printed circuit board. To remove or isolate the metals, processes like paralysis or hydrolysis are mostly used. By using hydrolysis the metalliferous material is dissolved in chlorine gas solution and acid.
There are lots of companies as well which are working as metal recovery service providers. These companies mostly purchase the material like old wires, circuit boards, industrial scraps and other such materials that have precious metal in them, some of those metals are gold, silver, Rhodium, Palladium, Copper and Bronze.
When these metals are extracted then these are put through different processes to take out precious metal from these. This is a very good environmental and economic sense.
Disposing batteries, non-working computers (desktops / laptops), electronic gadgets, and pretty much everything that uses power should be properly done, such as considering the right electronic waste recycling process. All households should always consider this, simply because proper disposing of electronic wastes is a must, if we all want to preserve mother earth, and make sure of people’s safety as well.
There are many reasons why people should do this, and just to name a few are:
- Throwing waste electronic items is dangerous to our environment, because electronic waste can pollute our land and soil. These wastes can end up in our land and water for decades or more without being decomposed. Meaning, it will stay there as a waste on earth, and cause damages not only to our earth, but to people as well.
- Electronic waste have precious metals which can be recovered and reused, but can only be accomplished, when disposed properly.
- Electronic recycling plants have the best facilities that can easily separate precious metals and waste including toxic materials that can be dangerous to the person conducting the recycling as well.
These are just some of the many reasons why companies should consider electronic waste recycling. Not just making sure of the safety of the environment only, but the people conducting the waste management as well.
These are just some examples of electronic wastes that are very common in every home.
If you have something that is heavy and is not easy to transport like large and non working solar panels, you can always call their facility to schedule a pick-up. Some facilities will not charge you of anything, especially if you are not asking anything in return, and all you want to do, is to dispose your item properly.
For those who are not very familiar what a catalytic converter is, it is actually a component of the exhaust system of a car, which serves as a tool that reduces the pollutants that come out of our car, making our cars friendlier to our environment.
Catalytic converters involve certain metals like iridium and platinum. These metals are classified as precious metals and very expensive, especially when bought brand new. Therefore, recycling catalytic converters is a must, not only to reduce buyers’ expense, but also because you want to reduce the demand of these precious metals, to preserve our natural resource.
If you have a very old car (1980 model and above) that you are not using anymore, and want to dispose, the first thing that you might want to do, before contacting the tow service to bring your car to the nearest junk shop, is to remove your catalytic converter first. The reason why you want to do this, is because you want to make sure that this part of your old car will be recycled properly, and because you might also earn some cash that you can use to upgrade your new car. Show Less
