Pallion Group Strategy of Technological Leadership

ABC Refinery, the refining division of Pallion Group, sees technology as one of the keys to their objective of being the global authority on precious metals. Technological leadership means the group does not wait for the best technologies to come to them. ABC Refinery is prepared to innovate – either alone or in partnerships – raising the bar for the industry as a whole, with recent examples throughout the Pallion Group subsidiaries.

Provcheck™ security bar technology

ABC Refinery has partnered with Blockhead Technologies to track gold throughout the entire supply chain. Due to their high value, precious metals are attractive to criminals, with scams such as counterfeit bars and tax fraud increasing. To mitigate the counterfeiting risk, ABC Refinery has partnered with Blockhead Technologies to be the first to introduce Provcheck™ security bar technology. Provcheck creates a unique visual ‘fingerprint’ of individual gold bars, storing that fingerprint on a secure site along with other information about provenance and environmental credentials. Whenever a customer wants to verify a bar’s authenticity, they can scan it using their Provcheck mobile app. The scans are then checked against the stored fingerprint information, with an exact match needed to verify the bar – a simple process for customers that gives customers full confidence in what they are buying.

Acidless Technology (ALS) refining

ABC Refinery had already revolutionized the industry in Australia by being the first – and one of the world’s first – to introduce Acidless Separation (ALS) technology to their pre-refining process. Instead of acid, ALS uses vacuum distillation technology to separate the metals and other elements. While the environmental benefits are significant, ALS also offers major improvements in safety, purity and production capacity, while reducing operating costs. In 2022, the refinery doubled its ALS capacity. It is still the sole acidless separation refiner in the region, and now also the largest refiner globally to use this method.

T-Line™ – the world’s largest automated barring plant

Developed by Pallion Group for ABC Refinery and using proprietary smart manufacturing technology, T-Line is a modular, fully automated system designed for the continuous production of ingots out of refined precious metals. Previously manufactured by hand, the ingots are now produced with increased site safety, a more consistent quality, with production time slashed. Fully modular and customizable, the T-Line can be adapted to many other applications. T-Line is able to output over 120kg of the highest quality gold – worth over AUD$11M at the time of writing – each hour.

ABCINTERING™ coin and tablet production with reduced waste

Sintering technology is at the heart of this new process developed by Pallion that allows ABC Refinery to reduce wastage in the production of coin and tablets by more than 30%. While the technology creates an immediate advantage in production efficiency, the added benefit is the reduction in resources needed to melt and re-refine production waste.

Induction metal casting

All metal casting machines across the Pallion jewelry division – Palloys – use induction technology. Output quality has improved as the technology minimises porosity in cast metals. Furthermore, unlike traditional methods, worksite safety is improved as there is no open gas flame.

Pyrolytic incineration

ABC Refinery has adopted this world-leading and environmentally conscious waste disposal process. Pyrolytic incineration prevents waste from going into landfill and ensures any output is reprocessed to recover and refine residual metal. Unlike traditional processes, pyrolytic incineration is conducted without exposure to oxygen. This leads to a 600% increase in operational efficiency compared with standard technologies.

Fiber Laser Cutter

Palloys’ recent investment in a Fiber Laser cutter has transformed the capabilities of the fabrication team – and their customers in the jewellery trade. The laser cuts silver, platinum, gold and base metal alloys up to 2.5mm thick with a cut width of 0.08mm. Having far fewer limitations on the level of intricacy that can be reliably achieved gives jewellery designers the opportunity to push the boundaries of their creativity. Hardened metals can be used too, eliminating one of the negatives of casting. Accurate reproduction work – such as being able to create flat chain links – is something that would previously been done by hand. The laser allows a link to be cut perfectly in just a few seconds.

Always looking to the long term

Taking a leading stance is never cheap or easy in the short term. However, an ongoing commitment to technological leadership throughout the Pallion Group is seen as a necessity in order for each subsidiary businesses to be leaders in terms of safety, security, environmental and social impact, quality, volume, and ultimately customer value over the long term.