In pictures: From scrap to solid gold
- Published
To melt gold you need a furnace heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
During the boom two years ago, Baird and Co, the biggest producer of gold products in the UK, would be melting gold every two hours.
The bar of scrap gold is then cooled down.
Once melted down the scrap gold goes through a chemical process to remove the impurities.
At the end of the chemical process, you are left with gold sand. This bucket is worth around £500,000.
Gold sand will be tested for purity and then made into new products, including bars, of up to 99.99% pure gold.
...or for the man or woman who has everything, a gold domino set?
All this from scrap gold. In the boom years Baird melted down more than 10 tonnes annually.