Making of Gold
Everyone on this planet runs behind Gold. But how Gold is made? Lets learn.
Gold is the softest and most valuable metal. There are others as well like Silver but Gold costs more as everyone
knows. Gold can be pressed extremely thin and can also be crafted into various shapes as desired. Fine thin wire
or chain can also be made easily from Gold and that too without breaking.
Gold is not affected by water or oxygen as compared to various other metals. This quality of Gold makes it different
. This also allows Gold to keep rust or tarn away from itself. Most gold comes from deposits where large
concentrations of Gold and other metals are present in cracks of rocks. This requires hard rock mining in which drilling
and blasting process is required to be carried out to produce ore. For this, miners are sent about half a kilometre
down the surface of the earth. Miners then drill holes for explosives under the surface which is also called as
long hole air drill.
Drilling is done in specific patterns which are usually set up and planned by mine engineers. These patterns are
prepared on the basis of they know where exactly gold is present under the surface, accordingly, patters are made.
Geologists also come into picture at the time of preparing drilling patterns because they study the ore samples
and with the help of engineers, drilling patterns are prepared.Companies after drilling process, collects samples of ore which are obtained after deep drilling into rocks. These samples are usually of 3.5 cm of size in diameter. At this stage, Gold is not pure. It is in with the mixture of
Silver and other metals. Mined ore is need to be processed so that gold can be isolated from the mixture of Silver
and other metals and gold can be extracted from the mixture. Ideally, a metric ton of ore yields only 6.5 gram of
Gold.
Once blasting of rocks process is done, miners use muck machine to transfer the ores to cars which are usually carriers
and are then headed to the main shaft on a track and then to the mill. These ores are then pushed into crusher where
they are broken into smaller pieces of rocks. Then these are passed into texture of deep sand where water and
cyanide solution are added. After this, these pieces are further grined and put into mud like pool. These are usually
termed as settling tanks which are huge in size. As the mixture contains wet solid, it sinks at the bottom and water
flows out. Then the wet solids are then passed into agitation tank, where chemical reaction is applied on the cyanide
and gold trapped in the ore. During this process, chemical reaction helps gold to dissolve. Then water is separated
from the solids. this water is then mixed with the water which was separated earlier when wet solids are settled
down and remaining water moves out. Zinc powder is then added which will help in solidifying the dissolved gold.
Then this results into pieces made of zinc and gold.
Before making the bars, several chemicals are mixed. Chemicals like Manganese dioxide, Flourite, Silica flour,
florax, and sodium nitrate. These chemicals mixture is necessary which will help in separating gold from the
impurities. This mixture is then poured into a heater whose temperature is 1600 degree celsius. This heater is
then rotated so that mixture or its contents are heated evenly. Heating process continues for 2 hours and 30 minutes.
During this process, gold sinks to the bottom of the heater and needless to say that it will be in liquid form.
This process helps impurities which are called as slag, floats on the surface. Sample of slag is removed out ,
just to ensure that it doesn't contain any gold. If it does contain, then slag is again poured into heater for
heating to separate out the remaining gold.
Once slag is removed, gold is removed and poured into bar shaped moulds. Gold takes about 4 minutes to solidify.
60 minutes are then taken by Gold to get cooled completely in a base of cold water. once it is cooled, Gold bars
are then moved out of the moulds and then kept on weighing machine. Gold bars are also called as ingets. At this
stage, Gold is 80% pure. Royal Canadian Mint purifies it to 99.9% , the international gold standard.
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