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6 results for “fire assay” in Industry
Industry · 7 August 2026
How Fake Gold Is Detected
…rful: the mint's tolerances are tighter than a counterfeiter's economics usually allow. · Fire assay remains the legal reference method; every non-destructive technique is a proxy calibrated against it. · Does a magnet test prove gold is real? It disproves some fakes and proves n…
Tomas Herrera · 15 min read
Industry · 2 July 2026
Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery
…ining is two-stage: fast chlorination to ~99.5%, then electrolysis to 99.99% and above. · Fire assay, a technique older than the periodic table, remains the referee method for purity. · Good Delivery accreditation governs which bars trade without re-assay in the wholesale market.…
Tomas Herrera · 12 min read
Industry · 6 August 2026
The Scrap Trade
…e responds to price faster than mine output can. · Scrap is priced off spot, adjusted for assayed fineness, then discounted for testing, refining, transport and each intermediary's margin. · High-street payouts commonly land well below spot for the contained gold; specialist refi…
Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read
Industry · 4 August 2026
The Gold Inside Your Phone
…und one gram of gold per tonne. Populated circuit boards from consumer equipment commonly assay in the hundreds of grams per tonne, and dense telecom and computing hardware can run higher still. In grade terms, a container of scrap boards is a spectacular orebody that arrives pre…
Tomas Herrera · 15 min read
Industry · 7 August 2026
After the Cyanide
Every ounce of mined gold leaves behind roughly a tonne of processed rock and the water that carried it. What happens to that material after the last shift is the part of the industry with the longest…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
Industry · 28 July 2026
Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone
A tonne of good underground ore holds a few grams of gold. A tonne of discarded circuit boards can hold two hundred. So why is most of it still going into landfill? · Concentration, not tonnage, is wh…
Tomas Herrera · 13 min read
