Of Gold Purity
- A Crazy Little Bird Told Me
- Apr 29, 2023
- 1 min read
Did you know that it is virtually impossible to achieve 100% pure gold.
The purest type of gold currently commercially available is 999.99. This is sometimes referred to as five nines fine.
A sample of 24-carat gold is marked as 999, which indicates that it is an alloy made up of 99.9% gold, not 100%, as one might expect.
Why, will you ask, can't we "virtually" obtain 100% pure gold. Well the sources vary a little bit in their answers.
Reason 1 - it is all about entropy (this one... went a little bit over my head!);
Reason 2 - it can be done but only in laboratory (not sure why though, except that it is hard I suspect?);
Reason 3 - it is virtually impossible to eliminate 100% of all additional elements that gold may be exposed to during processing. Moreover, the removal of additives beyond a certain threshold becomes impractical, as the extraction of the last fraction of substances is the most expensive part of the process, and the cost of removing it exceeds the value it adds (alright, this explanation makes some sense!)
Reason 4 - pure gold can't be used for jewelry as it is too mallable (yes that makes sense too, but that doesn't answer why it is not technically achievable, or at least not easily achievable; only that there would be very little interest for it except for people who want to use gold as putty ... expensive hobby!)
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