A Dummies Guide To Refining Gold

Okay, if you have somehow managed to find this article, you are obviously interested in gold – or at least the process of refining gold. Whatever that has sparked that curiosity towards how gold is refined (whether it is because you found a gold mine or just naturally curious how they do it) the point is you are here and you are still reading this. First and foremost what you need to know is what is refining and why gold is refined. Refining is basically a process of ‘purification’ meaning taking out all the worthless stuff from something that is valuable such as ore containing gold. Why it is refined – it is refined because pure gold is what gold bars (gold bullion) is made of and yet it is still only 99.999% pure, meaning it still has a negligible 0.001 % of something worthless in it. An Example of a company that refines gold is M.A.K Precious Metals Gold Buyers and Gold Refiners – the name says it all (so if indeed you have stumbled on a mine that is filled with gold then click here to go to their website).

There are a variety of ways or methods that people use to refine gold, the oldest and most popular means is by using fire, that’s right, good old fire – provided you have found a gold mine that tons of gold as using fire to refine the precious metal is suitable for large quantities of gold. How they do it, well all you have to do is put all the gold ore in a clay pot and heat it up until the gold is molten and as the impurities rise to the top (gold is heavier than most other ‘things’ so molten pure gold sinks to the bottom and worthless stuff float to the top) all you have to do is skim the top portion of – just like how you skim milk. After that you wait for the pure gold to cool off and you should have 99.99 % pure gold with 0.01 % of worthless stuff. The second method for refining gold is via using chemicals (Nitric and Hydrochloric Acid), what they do is basically put whatever it is that contains gold (usually scrap metal) into a container (glass containers are best as the glass surface does not react to the acid) and pour the acids into the container which should strip the impurities form the gold – after which the gold is subjected to a wash leaving behind powdered residue which is as close to pure gold as you can get. After this the gold is usually melted using a blow torch to melt it and turn it into – a pure nugget that you could sell as 24K gold.

Whatever it is, always remember that gold refining is a dangerous process and it is best that you let the experts handle it or risk getting yourself scorched beyond recognition. Companies such as M.A.K Precious Metals Gold Buyers and Gold Refiners do offer refining services to the common individual such as you and even me for that matter.