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Gold's Intangible Merit
Gold's Intangible Merit
Because of gold's inertness some 80% of gold within ore is in its elemental state. There are several
processes for extracting, and then purifying it.
Amalgamation is a mercury based process which works because of gold's willingness to be dissolved by
mercury. The mercury is applied on an ore, picks up the gold, and the resulting amalgam is distilled, with
the mercury being boiled off to remove it. Mercury is highly toxic and therefore environmentally
sensitive, making the industrial plant to perform this type of extraction expensive.
The most important process for gold extraction is cyanidation. Sodium cyanide solution in the presence
of air causes gold to enter into solution. Good quality ores give up their gold under cyanidation in what
is called vat leaching. Lesser quality ores require heap leaching, which involves huge piles of ore being
repeatedly re-sprayed with the cyanide solution over a prolonged period.
Relatively raw gold is purified in two main ways. The cheaper first stage of purification is the Miller
process which uses chlorine gas and reaches purification of 99.5%, and then there is the more expensive
Wohlwill process which electrolyses gold to purities of 99.99%.