The "Iridium-doped" unfinished Zhou Dasheng is just the tip of the iceberg.

Editor's words/2013 years of CCTV "3 15" party, Zhou Dasheng Gold doped iridium problem was exposed. Iridium, a kind of rare, is explained in Wikipedia: "The name Iridium, whose name is from Rainbow God (Iris), was found in the insoluble impurities of platinum in 1803 and is the most corrosion-resistant and wearable material." What Wikipedia does not describe, however, is that iridium is a adulterated material for gold ornaments because it has nearly the same density as gold. Iridium is not produced in the production process of material or gold itself contains the substance, but in the production process artificially added. Why is iridium doped in gold? Who is the Iridium? This edition will be revealed to you. March 15, 2013 night, a section on the gold doped with iridium unannounced video aroused the attention of consumers, thousand gold ingredients. The issue of iridium counterfeiting in gold jewelry industry has directly evolved into a major consumer crisis event. So, who's iridium-doped? How does the Iridium industry chain work? 3 15 "Party Media Joint interview group members," China business newspaper "reporter visited Shenzhen, Beijing, the jewelry market, trying to uncover the truth of the incident. Check the leak according to the reporter understand, Zhou Dasheng is a pure brand operators and jewelry retail management enterprises, and do not own the factory, all of its products are referred to the production and processing enterprises. Some of these products are purchased from the Thai company. and Zhou Dasheng different is, hundred Thai besides processing and wholesale, also has its own brand and franchisee channels. When CCTV "3 15" party exposed the Zhou Dasheng products doped Iridium, director, Vice President Xianggang in an interview, said: "The company in the supply chain and market channels of management do exist loopholes, however, this batch of CCTV reported the problem of products are originally detected by testing institutions qualified." "The public's stance is more eager than Zhou Dasheng. On the morning of March 16, hundred Thai President assistant Shaoqing in the interview with the reporter said that the company did not mix iridium fraud, the existing products have been to the Lo Wu market supervision Authority for testing. March 17, the foreign announcement of the Hundred Thai, its products have been tested for qualified products. For CCTV "3 15" party exposure Zhou Dasheng jewelry in lieu of gold adulteration profit-making events, Zhou Dasheng March 21 Evening issued a notice, said to Langfang Gold Street store Cabinet was exposed lot of product arrangements recall, the next frame, inspection. Zhou Dasheng said that the batch of products, a total of 148, did not spread to other regions or stores. So how does the iridium-doped industry chain exist? Shenzhen Water shell is a Chinese jewelry processing base, the domestic 80% of gold jewelry are produced here, a jewelry processing plant owner demonstrated the iridium process, he said, 1 kg of gold can be doped 10 grams of iridium. The consumer is basically unable to measure by physical measurement. Wang Jiachi, director of the marketing Department of Rongchang Jewellery (Shenzhen) Limited (WCJ), told reporters that Iridium is usually the companion of platinum, which is often used in the alloys of platinum K-gold. It can increase the hardness of the metal. According to the owner of the jewellery processing plant, 1 kg of gold can be doped about 10 grams of iridium, rememberHave learned that the price of imports of iridium is about 260 yuan/grams, and the recovery of iridium powder or ordinary iridium powder, the price between 90~110 yuan/grams. At present thousand gold price is about 320 yuan/gram, if each kilogram mixes 10 grams of ordinary iridium powder (according to 100 Yuan calculate), each kilogram can reduce the cost to be about 2200 yuan, one ton is 2.2 million yuan. Seemingly "insignificant", but only a large gold production enterprises as an example, the annual gold shipments exceed 200 tons, reducing the cost will be more than 400 million yuan. Not worth It? However, the above business ledger is only an "ideal state". The reporter learned from many jewelers in the Shenzhen water market that iridium is not an industry practice because it is not worth the candle. In the process of jewelry processing, iridium hardness is higher than gold, processing is easy to diamond cutting knife damage, the appearance is not good-looking. Obviously this part of the loss compared with the cost advantage is not big. Yang revealed that for the size of the gold jewelry wholesale enterprises, there are several sources of profit: One is the jewellery processing fee, the other is the loss difference in the processing process, which is the allowable 5%~18% loss weight in the trading contract; The third is the gold futures spreads and guarantee financial profits, that is, large enterprises in the process of gold production and circulation, The price difference between the gold futures and spot, and the supply chain financing profit in the process of production and sale. Shenzhen Jewellery Industry Association a vice president, who declined to be named, told reporters as early as 2004, the industry found someone to the gold jewelry inside doped iridium, because at that time just started, work more rough, doped with iridium particles is relatively large, easy to be found, and later technology more and more superb, gradually developed into iridium powder, detection difficulty is getting bigger. The vice president said that the situation of the mixed iridium is mainly two kinds: a small supply enterprises, these small enterprises in order to with the industry reputable large enterprises competition, can only reduce prices, processing costs are similar, if the price is low, there will be articles here. The second is the terminal Business link. for jewelry wholesalers, they can control the link only from the Shanghai gold trading in the raw materials, and then processing, and so processed sold to the terminal, the next link they can not control. Individual terminals Add "iridium" in order to covet a bit of price concessions, but this usually leads to additional processing costs. This category is relatively rare. The lack of oversight of the gold industry has again pushed the impartiality of third-party testing agencies to the fore. Consumers buy goods, in addition to looking at the brand, there is an important source of confidence is the goods attached to the "authority" issued by the certificate of identification. But most consumers are not aware of the "authorities" in their mouths. Gold jewelry Industry personage discloses, the gold product most authoritative testing organization is the national jewelry Quality Supervision and inspection center and the National Jewelry Jade Quality Supervision and inspection Center. While many regions only recognize the local testing authority, such as the Wuhan area, gold and jewelry market testing agencies only recognized Geosciences jewelry Testing Center, and the exposure of Tangshan jewelry and Tangshan Ocean City Goldsmith family are to send jewelry to TangshanGem Product quality Supervision and inspection station for submission. This will lead to detection of testing institutions throughout the country everywhere, testing results are diverse, which is not conclusive. Reporter from the claim to have a state-level testing qualification of the Beijing-dimensional quality inspection Jewelry Jade Center official website found a "National Jewelry accreditation Body List", the form is included in the "National first" "National Inspection" and Wuhan University of Geosciences (Wuhan) Jewelry Institute, Tangshan Jade Products Quality supervision and inspection station, including 61 institutions. According to the CCTV reporter revealed that the national jewelry jade Quality Supervision and inspection center a piece of jewelry damage detection is 2100 yuan. This price is a huge expense for both the manufacturer and the consumer. Tangshan City Trade and Industry bureau in charge said: "We seized the matter of the product, the merchant issued a local testing agency testing certificate of competency, because this institution does have a nationally recognized testing qualification, so we can not determine its test results have problems." Now we need to test the storage product to the final test results. ”