How to Refine Gold

Creating consumer-ready gold is a process that involves three steps: prospecting, extracting, and then refining gold.

One of the most difficult phases of creating processed gold is finding it. There are a variety of ways to find gold, such as gold panning, metal detecting, sluicing, dredging, and mining. Panning for gold is easiest, but mining is the most practical for large-scale production. With mining, geologists search for of gold in rocks and soil. If there are indications of gold, scientists drill samples, take them to the lab, and analyze their gold content. Next, if samples turn out positive, miners will take some of that rock from the ground. They now need to isolate it and refine it into actual gold. First, the large chunks of rock are broken down into smaller pieces by crushers. Once the ore becomes a powder, it is put into water to form a pulp. This liquid runs through a leaching tank, which dissolves the gold out of the ore through the use of chemicals. (Usually, cyanide is the most common solvent used.) Then comes a filter, which prevents the pulp from passing but allows the dissolved gold to go through. The last procedure called electro-winning delivers an electric current to the liquid to remove any last leaching chemicals. Later, gold is melted into chunks and is shipped off to other refineries for better processing.

Refining gold is the last stage of gold production. It removes impurities that may be left in the gold. First, gold must be completely melted, which usually happens at 1102 degrees Celsius. Once everything is melted, borax and soda ash are added. Next, the liquid gold is poured into a mold and is left to settle, where the larger impurities settle on the top, and the dense gold sinks to the bottom. Once everything hardens, the gold would form the bottom layer of the molded substance. It can then be broken off from the rest of the impurities. Later, the gold might need to be remelted and purified once again.