What is a precious metal refinery?

by Sarvesh Velankar Asst. Marketing

A precious metal refinery is a facility that separates precious metals such as gold and silver from other materials, usually by recycling scrap containing these valuable components. This operation is challenging and necessitates the assistance of a skilled precious metal refiner.

This method isolates all valuable elements in their purest form, allowing them to get reintroduced into the market. These precious metals get extracted from a variety of goods. Dental scrap, jewellery, implants, and electronics are just a few examples. Learn more about the precious metal recycling process here.

What is a precious metal refinery? How does it work?

The refining process is intricate, and it also depends on the type of precious metal getting refined. When you send your metal scrap to a refinery, these are the typical stages you can expect:

Receiving the materials

The weighing of the lot is the first stage of the procedure when you deliver your material to the precious metal manufacturer. The metal trash gets opened in a secure room, weighed, and photographed if you engage with a professional refiner. The lots are then given a unique identifying number and kept in a safe location until it is time to process them.

Stone removal

If you sent in a batch of jewellery, the precious stones are removed before the metals get processed. It gets generally accomplished through a chemical process employing Acqua Regia. Precious metal refiners perform this in their secure in-house laboratory, meticulously extracting the precious stones from your jewellery using Acqua Regia and acid digestion.

Processing and melting

Metals like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium get refined by melting them. They are melted in an induction furnace or with a blowtorch, depending on the type of metal. During this stage of the process, a purifying agent gets introduced. The molten substance gets added to ensure that the sample is uniform and representative.

The precious metal refining company obtains a sample while the metal is still molten using the Pin Tube Sampling method to ensure that the sample is 100% homogenous. The liquid metal is then put into a mould and allowed to set. Some refineries wait until the metal is solid before taking a sample with the less precise drilling approach.

Fire assay and atomic absorption

The fire assay is the most used procedure, and it gets widely recognised as highly accurate and matches the industry standard. It is a lengthy and complicated analysis, yet it yields a result with a two-part-per-thousand precision.

Settlement

Once the precious metal manufacturing company has completed examining your materials, you get notified of the results and the final price based on the precious metal value, which is usually the value on the day the lot arrived at the refinery. An authentic precious metal refinery gives you the analytic data on the results to be confident that everything got done correctly.