What is a precious metal refinery?

A precious metal refinery removes metals like gold and silver from other materials, usually by recycling scraps, including these valuable components. This is a complex operation that requires the assistance of a competent precious metal refiner. This technique separates all essential elements in their purest form, allowing their reintroduction into the market. These valuable metals get recovered from a wide range of products.

Nitro technology manufacturers products also use metal refineries. Understand the precious metal recycling process better here:

What are precious metal refineries and their mechanism?

The refining process is complex, and it varies depending on the precious metal getting refined. When you submit your metal scrap to a refinery, you anticipate the following stages:

Receiving the materials

When you deliver your metal to the precious metal manufacturer, weigh the lot. If you choose a professional refiner, the metal garbage opens in a secure room, is weighed, and photographed. The lots then get assigned a unique identification number and stored in a safe area until they get processed.

Stone removal

The valuable stones are removed before the metals get treated if you send in a batch of jewellery. It gets done with Acqua Regia and precious metal chemicals. Precious metal refiners do this in a secure in-house laboratory, employing Acqua Regia and acid digestion to extract the precious stones from your jewellery carefully.

Processing and melting

Melting metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium refines them. Depending on the metal, they get melted in an induction furnace or using a blowtorch. A purifying agent gets introduced at this point. To ensure that the sample is homogeneous and representative, the molten substance gets applied.

To guarantee that the sample is 100% homogeneous, the precious metal manufacturer gets a sample while the metal is still molten using the Pin Tube Sampling method. Then, the liquid metal gets poured into a mould and allowed to harden. Some refineries use a less exact drilling method and wait until it turns solid metal before taking the sample.

Fire assay and atomic absorption

This is the most common process typically regarded as highly accurate and in line with industry standards. It is a long and complicated process that gives the precision of two parts per thousand.

Settlement

You get the results, and the final price based on the precious metal value, which is usually the value when the lot arrives at the refinery and the company has finished examining the materials. An authentic precious metal refinery offers authentic analytic data based on the results, allowing you to be sure that everything gets done correctly.

Sarvesh Velankar is an Asst. Marketing Officer in one of the best Precious Metal Manufacture company which offers precious metal refiners India.