Silver Content Determination, Digital & Traditional Fine Metal Skills, and High Surface Refining

Welcome to three exciting new speakers for the Assaying & Refining Conference 2025.

Simone Marsan

Simone Marsan (Head of the Analytical Laboratory, Argor-Heraeus SA) is a Swiss Sworn Assayer and currently a member of ISO TC174 WG1/WG4 and the Schweizerische Normen-Vereinigung (SNV), contributing to the standardisation of analytical methods for determining the purity of precious metals and ensuring their responsible sourcing. For the past 10 years, he has been involved in the training, development, and validation of new analytical methods for the laboratory at Argor-Heraeus SA, as well as the alignment of methods for other laboratories within the group.

Simone will be presenting a new proposal on Quantitative Determination of Silver Content Using Fire Assay.

Ann-Marie Carey

Ann-Marie Carey (Associate Professor, School of Jewellery at Birmingham City University) has worked with Birmingham Museums Trust and the Museum of London, utilising craftsmanship expertise to deconstruct and recreate heritage artefacts and resulting in a significant contribution to ‘The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels’ exhibition (2013-14), the most successful exhibition in the Museum of London’s history.

The duality of craftsmanship and technology is a constant thread in Ann-Marie’s research and brings a subject-specific perspective to the examination and interpretation of artefacts and their production. For this reason, we look forward to hearing her valuable insights on Recreating on the Staffordshire Hoard Helmet: A Collaboration of Digital and Traditional Fine Metal Skills.

Giovanni Faoro

Giovanni Faoro (Chairman – R&D Strategies, IKOI SpA) has worked for decades on precious metals metallurgy, holding several patents over melting, casting, distillation, crystallisation, mechatronics and mechanical volume reduction over the precious metals.

He is the head of the Flameless Tunnel®, ALS® Acid-Less Separation, FCC® Flameless Casting Chamber, Ultra Bite®, Density Booster® and HSR® High Surface Refining project development teams, the latter of which will form the crux of his Conference presentation: High Surface Refining: A New Development in the Precious Metal Refining Process.