Gold is a rare metallic element with a melting point of 1064 degrees centigrade and a boiling point of 2808 degrees centigrade. Its chemical symbol, Au, is short for the Latin word for gold, Aurum, which literally means Glowing Dawn. It has several properties that have made it very useful to mankind over the years, notably its excellent conductive properties and its inability to react with water or oxygen!

This stems back to ancient times in the Mediterranean /Middle East, when a carat became used as a measure of the purity of gold alloys.The gold-containing ore has to be dug from the surface or blasted from the rock face underground. This is then hauled to the surface and milled to release the gold. The gold is then separated from the rock (gangue) by techniques such as flotation, smelted to a gold-rich Dore and cast into bars. These are then refined to gold bars by the Miller chlorination process to a purity of 99.5%. If higher purity is needed or platinum group metal contaminants are present, this gold is further refined by the Who l will electrolytic process to 99.9% purity. Mine tailings containing low amounts of gold may be treated with cyanide to dissolve the gold and this is then extracted by the carbon in pulp technique before smelting and refining.Long back, in olden days, gold was considered to have healing and therapeutic properties and so it was worn widely. For more than 5000 years, people have used gold as jewelry and also as a source of money, since then the love for gold has haven’t died down.