Advanced Chemical Blog

Advanced Chemical prides itself on being one of the most efficient precious metals refineries in existence, but we are always looking to improve the ways in which we are able to serve our customers. One of the ways we have been able to improve our service for the manufacturers with whom we work is by more efficiently helping them recapture the gold and other precious metals used in their processes.

We work with a variety of manufacturers who use previous metals in their processes. For instance, electroplaters use Gold Plating solutions for decorative colors or electronic products. These solutions, when passing through filters and ion-exchange resins used during the process, capture traces of gold and other precious metals. That’s where our state-of-the-art burn room can make a difference: Our burn room allows us to recapture the gold and other precious metals trapped inside the filters and resins.

The incinerator burns off all of the organic material, leaving ash and metallics. Once the burn process is complete, any metals left will be emptied out of the incinerator tray and put into a ball mill. A ball mill is a very large container filled with about 200 stainless steel balls approximately 2-1/2 inches wide.

During the ball milling process, the metallic material from the incinerator is crushed into a fine powder. The powder from the ball mill is sifted into a drum where it is blended into a good mix so that a reliable sample can be retrieved. The material is sifted through a 70-mesh screen. The finer particulates fall through the mesh, leaving behind the oversize, which, if it still contains precious materials, will be melted in another furnace. Through that sample, Advanced Chemical will be able to determine exactly how much gold or other precious metals can be recaptured from the burn. It’s a very efficient process. The same process can be used for other materials that can be burnt, for example, a rug ,wood flooring, cloths, gloves, and any other burnable material from a jewelry repair shop or semiconductor fabricating facility. This process is known as “sweeps” within the refining industry.

We have one of the most efficient refineries in the industry. In the last year, we increased the capacity of our burn room tremendously, tripling the amount of material that can be burnt. Our burn room allows us to process our client’s materials with no cross-pollution or contamination quickly and reliably.

The biggest benefit to our clients, though, is our ability to process materials more quickly while still maintaining our high yields. There’s no backup because, with our increased capacity, we can process several client orders at once.

Advanced Chemical has always been committed to providing the highest quality services to our customers. We have a variety of gas and induction melters to meet the needs of our customers, and several months ago, we were able to increase our productivity and capacity by purchasing and installing a new melter in our facility. The newest member of the Advanced Chemical family is an Inductotherm 2500 Troy Ounce Melter, otherwise known as a tilt furnace.

The main advantage to induction is efficiency; we can do the same melt in less time. Induction also creates its own mixing current, whereas gas melting requires some manual stirring and mixing. When done correctly, however, gas melting yields the exact same result. We’re excited to add this technology alongside the methods we’ve been using since we started doing business and are pleased to say that the induction furnace won’t represent any sacrifice in the final yield quality that clients expect from us.

The efficiency of the tilt furnace offers a real advantage for customers with large batches who want to watch the melt process. We have an open-door policy at Advanced Chemical, so customers are welcome to come to the facility and watch the whole melt and sample process from start to finish. One of the primary benefits of the Inductotherm 2500 tilt furnace is its size. Precious Metal Refineries with only smaller furnaces at their disposal may have to split up the melt, adding time to the whole process.

When a customer with a large batch is watching the melt, we don’t want to take more time out of their day by having to do the process twice because only a smaller furnace is available. With this larger capacity tilt furnace, we can do large batches all at once, let the customer watch the entire process and take their samples with them in a reasonable amount of time. Our new tilt furnace allows us to better meet our clients’ schedules and needs.

We are very proud of our continued efforts to offer flexible solutions to our customers. We are excited about our new tilt furnace and the commitment it represents to explore new technologies that allow us to provide our customers with the most efficiency and the best possible end product. If you’d like to learn more about our new furnace feel free to email me at jantonacci@advchem.com.

Stay tuned next month for ‘Always Looking to Improve: A look at our new Burn Room’