Refining gold literally deals with recovering gold to its pure state so that the end product is free from impurities that may impair the quality of gold to be used in the jewellery industry. There are several different methods currently in use for refining gold and the method used usually depends on the amount of gold to be refined. Once you follow all the steps in the gold refining process you can be guaranteed to have a fantastic quality finished product.

The first method for refining gold is cupellation, whereby lead is added to the unrefined gold. This mixture is then heated until the gold dissolves in the lead. When this happens the base metals are oxidised to form lead oxide and gold bullion remains. This refining process
is only suitable for small amounts of gold due to the toxic lead oxide fumes that are omitted.

The second method of gold refining in use is inquartation and parting. This method uses alloys such as silver or copper that is added to the gold and melted. What is left is a material that contains 25% or less of pure gold. The next step in this process is to add nitric acid that literally flushes out the alloys and leaves a sludge like gold residue. This is then washed, filtered and dried for use. This process is capable of producing a gold purity of 99.99% and is best suited for use with low carat value gold scrap. We just don’t realise when we see a piece of gold jewellery in the shops the journey that it must make before it becomes the material we know and love.