# Who needs inquarting (inquartation) - practical applications



## Viy (Nov 26, 2015)

- What industrial application has inquartation (inquarting) process? Here I mean getting high karat gold from low karat using pre-smelted with silver, copper, etc.
- Do you know jewelry factories where the process is realized?


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## solar_plasma (Nov 27, 2015)

I can't help with your question, but maybe with some definitions:

Smelting ist not melting. 

While* smelting* is a pyrometallurgical (chemical) process, often used to prepare ore for further processing or to gain the metallic form by the means of redox processes,

*melting* is the physical process to bring solids to their liquid aggregate state by the means of heat.

On the forum I read, that the continious remelting of gold alloys will reduce the quality of their physical proberties.

Since you have to expect that there isn't only one kind of 10K yellow gold but a thousand different alloys of it - not to mention all the ugly solders used, that will alloy with the rest of your "high-karat-gold", it might be hard to obtain a consistent qualtity or any appreciable quality at all.

That is why there are refiners.

The word "inquartation" is, as far as I know, only used for the process to alloy high-karat alloy with silver or copper in order to dissolve silver and basemetals by the means of nitric acid before further processing of the gold.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Nov 28, 2015)

You could also melt the metal and then cast into grain so small that the surface to mass ration will allow you to dissolve high karat gold regardless of the karat.

I don't see this talked about often, but it is a viable option that works very well, and can save many processing steps.

Scott


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## maynman1751 (Nov 28, 2015)

> You could also melt the metal and then cast into grain


Scott, could you explain how this is done? Thanks!


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## Viy (Nov 28, 2015)

Thank you for answering. I'd like to know who uses that. If the goal is to receive pure Gold, who needs in that process and for what? Who knows industry, which use inquarting?


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## etack (Nov 28, 2015)

maynman1751 said:


> > You could also melt the metal and then cast into grain [/quote
> > Scott, could you explain how this is done? Thanks!


Lots of threads on this here is a good read barren posted in 2010



http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=6785

Eric


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## artart47 (Nov 28, 2015)

Hi Viy!
I have a small amount of 10K rings that I'm about to process. I will use nitric acid to leach out the silver/copper or whatever other metals from the alloy and the remaining gold will be un affected by the nitric.
Being 10K alloy, the nitric acid will begin working it's way into the rings. But, because the gold atoms are so close together, they will limit how far the acid will penetrate because material in the center will become protected by the gold.
To dilute the alloy, I will first melt the rings along with enough silver to form an alloy that only has about 25% gold. By spreading out the gold atoms it will allow the acid to make it's way to the center of each piece thus, removing all of the unwanted metals. What remains is a gold sponge that is very pure.
After inquarting you would want to search and learn about making "corn flake" 
Hope this helps you understand. Good luck!
artart47


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## NobleMetalWorks (Nov 28, 2015)

maynman1751 said:


> > You could also melt the metal and then cast into grain [/quote
> > Scott, could you explain how this is done? Thanks!



Atomizing, where you are pouring the molten metal into a metal container that has pressure sprayers that come into contact with the molten metal as you are pouring. This creates small enough particles if designed correct, that the mass to surface ratio allows for digestion in acids without inquarting. 

Scott


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## 4metals (Dec 5, 2015)

You make no mention of any quantity of refining you are doing. Every process has its "sweet spot" where it is the most efficient means to an end and different sized production quantities will benefit from different processes. You would be better served to tell us what quantities and frequency you are refining and that will get you the best answer. 

Atomization is not for the small scale processor and it does NOT reduce your need to know and understand the chemistry. 

It will allow the base metals and silver that exist in the alloy to be leached with nitric acid to concentrate the gold for classic aqua regia recovery. 

For small scale, I would recommend classic silver inquartation, it is the epitome of recycling as you silver is recycled over and over again each time you inquart. 

This thread may be helpful. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=22229&start=0


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