Quickly Detect Gold Plating with AuDIT Technology

Importance of the Topic

Gold plating fraud poses a significant challenge in the precious metals market, as it undermines trust, profitability, and quality assurance. Rapid, reliable detection of plated items is essential for gold buyers, refiners, and quality control laboratories to ensure authenticity and fair valuation.

Objectives and Overview

This document introduces Thermo Scientific’s Au Detection & Identification Technology (AuDIT™) designed to identify gold-plated substrates such as vermeil, copper, steel, tungsten, and silver. The primary goal is to offer a straightforward yet robust screening method to distinguish genuine gold artifacts from plated imitations using portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers.

Instrumentation Used

Key instruments integrated with AuDIT technology include:

• Thermo Scientific™ Niton™ DXL Precious Metal Analyzer
• Thermo Scientific™ Niton™ XL2 Precious Metal Analyzer

These portable XRF devices combine field-ready durability with specialized software to execute the AuDIT testing sequence.

Methodology

The AuDIT approach employs a two-tier testing workflow:

• Primary Test – A rapid surface analysis that flags probable gold plating irrespective of surface gold concentration.
• Secondary Tests – Multiple independent checks for confirmation:
  
  • Nickel boundary layer detection to reveal underlying substrate interfaces.
  • Karat assessment to identify abnormally low or nonstandard karat values.

The entire sequence is automated within the Niton XRF software, enabling single-button or trigger-based operation.

Main Results and Discussion

AuDIT demonstrates high sensitivity to even thin gold layers, minimizing false negatives in the primary test. Secondary confirmatory steps effectively differentiate genuine high-karat gold from plated items, reducing false positives. Field trials show that AuDIT significantly improves screening throughput and accuracy compared to conventional visual inspection or single-element XRF scans.

Benefits and Practical Applications

Adoption of AuDIT technology delivers multiple advantages:

• Enhanced confidence in purchase and resale of precious metal items.
• Reduced risk of financial losses caused by undetected plating.
• Streamlined workflows for jewelry stores, pawnshops, refineries, and assay labs.
• Minimal training requirement due to intuitive software interface.

Future Trends and Potential Applications

Advancements may include integration with cloud-based data analytics, real-time networked screening across retail outlets, and expanded detection capabilities for other surface treatments or alloying agents. Further miniaturization and battery efficiency improvements could extend AuDIT use to remote mining operations and archaeological investigations.

Conclusion

Thermo Scientific’s AuDIT technology offers a fast, accurate, and user-friendly solution for gold plating detection in portable XRF analyzers. By combining primary and secondary analyses, it strengthens material authentication practices, safeguards market integrity, and supports efficient precious metal transactions.