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Amalgamation method is mainly used for refining of gold, silver.
The physical and/or chemical characteristics that make amalgamation work are not clearly understood to this day. However, it is known that if clean mercury is brought into contact with clean gold, the gold is wetted and "drawn into" the mercury. This results in a solution of gold in mercury or an alloy of gold and mercury called amalgam. After the mercury has gathered in the gold it can be removed by dissolving it in nitric acid or by driving it off as a vapor by heat. The gold will remain behind.
The mill operator's problem is to get the gold and the mercury into intimate contact with each other. To do this he must: (1) liberate the gold particles from the gangue; (2) remove any coating which may be covering the gold; (3) keep the mercury clean and bright; And (4) bring the gold and mercury into intimate contact. Then he must allow the amalgam to coalesce, separate it from the pulp, and extract the gold.
Amalgamation generally works best on relatively coarse gold that can be liberated from the gangue and abraded clean without too much difficulty. Since mercury will not penetrate into minute crevasses or pores, the ore must be ground fine enough to expose the gold at the surface. If the gold is very fine, cyanidation is more effective and, in practice, a combination of amalgamation and cyanidation is usually employed. Gravity and flotation are also frequently used in conjunction with amalgamation.