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There is always pressure to reduce the cost of manufactured items and carat gold jewellery is no exception to this situation. In fact, it is only relatively recently (1997) that the economic and currency turmoil in countries like South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia had such an impact on the local gold price that, at times, gold jewellery sales effectively ceased altogether. In Indonesia, for example, at a time when the dollar gold price was falling, the gold price in the local currency increased by 90%. What, then, are some of the ways in which gold jewellery costs can be reduced? One approach is the use of mass production techniques to lower the unit manufacturing cost of items. Such techniques include the well-established chain making, stamping and investment casting, the more recent electroforming and the very recent powder metallurgy processes. These techniques are continually developing as equipment manufacturers make more advances and market their products more widely..... (2002) Complete Story
The small-medium scale refiner (typically up to 3-4 kg per batch) tends to adopt the Aqua Regia process as being a relatively straightforward technique, capable of producing gold with a purity in excess of 99.9%. The essential steps in the process are to dissolve the refinable material (such as jewellery process scrap) in aqua regia, a mixture of strong nitric and hydrochloric acids, and to selectively precipitate the gold from the resulting solution.... (1999) Complete Story
