Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** This article highlights a breakthrough from Colombian engineers who have developed a technique to color gold without using gemstones, offering a vibrant new dimension to jewelry design.
These jewelry pieces show all the colors. Yet they are neither rubies, nor sapphires, nor emeralds, but pieces entirely made of gold, colored thanks to a technique developed in Colombia, a major producer of this precious metal.
Gold circles and necklace exhibited at the University of the Province of Antioquia in Medellin (Colombia).
The idea, born three years ago in the minds of a group of engineers from the University of the Province of Antioquia in Medellin, where the main deposits are located in the northwest of the country, was to add value to gold.
Some 56 tons of this metal were extracted in Colombia in 2011, an increase of 4%, making it one of the main producers in Latin America, along with Peru and Mexico. That same year, its gold exports increased by 31.4% in value to reach $2.8 billion, according to official figures.
Until now, initial experiments to create “blue” gold had already been attempted in Italy, according to the Colombian researchers.
Their technique involves subjecting samples of 24-karat gold mixed with 20% other metals to a thermal process of eight to ten hours in special furnaces.
After cooling, the material obtained, whose color has radically changed, is polished to take on the appearance of a precious stone, coated with a resin, and then mounted on a ring, brooch, or pendant.
The color of the new jewelry can range over a wide gamut from white to blue, passing through intense yellow, green, and violet, sometimes taking on a coffee or fuchsia hue.
According to the project promoters, the value of gold thus transformed could reach five times its usual price.
While waiting for the transformation process to be patented, these gold jewelry pieces have not yet been commercialized, even though some samples have already been presented in stores.
AFP/VNA/CVN
