MATERIAL ANALYTICS IN THE AREA
Ores and rocks
Precious metals such as gold, silver, or platinum are not only important in the jewelry industry but also in the medical field and electronics. To extract these metals, large quantities of ores and other rocks typically need to be mechanically crushed to make the gold, for example, accessible.
After mechanical crushing, the precious metal must be chemically separated from the surrounding rock (fire assay) to achieve the highest possible yield and make the process as economically efficient as possible. In addition to sample preparation, we also offer the possibility of chemical analysis to quantify the amount of precious metals.
When developing new deposits, it is crucial for the potential operator to know whether a deposit contains enough precious metals to justify the economic extraction of gold in that area.
Crushing from ton-scale to gram-scale
Extraction of precious metals using the fire assay method
Precise determination of valuable metals with ICP-OES
Gold occurs in the Earth's continental crust in very small amounts, on average about 4 grams of gold per 1,000 tons of rock. In deposits, the concentration is somewhat higher. Gold is primarily found in its elemental, metallic form in primary raw material deposits as gold-bearing rock (gold ore) and in secondary deposits, including placer deposits.
Before the gold can be chemically separated from the rock, the surrounding rock must be crushed.
With our crushing line, we can break down ores and rocks from tens of thousands of tons into various fractions and prepare them for analysis.
The so-called fire assay method is the standard for evaluating gold and silver in materials. In this process, rock is melted with the help of a flux to separate the gold from other metals or impurities. This allows, for example, the determination of the gold content in the rock using ICP-OES. Although this method is destructive, it is also one of the most precise methods for gold analysis.
To determine the concentrations of precious metals (e.g., gold, silver, platinum) in your materials, such as ores, we can support you with the following services:
Mechanical sample crushing in the ton range
Sorting into customer-specified fractions
Chemical sample preparation using the fire assay method
Chemical analysis using ICP-OES
For enquiries about these analyses, please contact our laboratory team at anfrage@industrial-lab.de or get in touch with your contact person:
Head of Team Inorganics
02762 9740 - 93
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Head of department
Inorganics / Sample Preparation
02762 9740 - 74
Send e-mail
