Jackie-O Indústria e Comércio
Researcher starts new company to continue developing colored
gold alloys; Brazil’s jewelry market is worth US$ 2.5 billion

Evanildo da Silveira

For the metallurgical engineer Edval Araújo, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis “was the classiest woman of all times.” That’s why he thought no other name would be more appropriate than hers for an enterprise that produces gold jewelry. So he decided to call Jackie-O the company he created earlier this year with the support of the Programa Inovação Tecnológica em Pequenas Empresas (Technological Innovation in Small Businesses Program, PIPE), of the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (State of São Paulo Research Foundation, Fapesp). Jackie-O was born out of a split in the company Araújo had created with two partners in 2002, Regulus Ars Tecnologia em Jóias Ltda, which also had gotten a loan from PIPE. In both companies Araújo developed a technology for colored gold alloys that requires no foundry. It’s a mechanical process, which is cheaper and may be used to produce small amounts. Before production in scale he wants to have the process patented.

There’s gold in several hues besides yellow – white, black, red, green, purple and blue. To get 18-carat gold alloys in those colors the technology currently used is foundry metallurgy, which is expensive and may be used only to produce large quantities. The project “Obtenção de ligas de ouro colorido por moagem de alta energia” (Obtaining colored gold alloys through high-energy grinding), which Regulus submitted and Fapesp approved, created an alternative for that technology. The company got resources first to research if Araújo’s idea was really feasible. For that, Fapesp financed approximately US$ 40,000 in November of 2003, within the so-called PIPE Phase I. “Without that money the company wouldn’t exist,” admits the engineer. The money was used mostly for testing the viability of producing colored gold powder.

Since the project succeeded in Phase I, in 2004 Araújo applied for more money from Phase II — to actually put the research project under way. The company got about US$ 160,000. “We used that money to produce our first colored gold pigments,” he recalls. The money was not enough: in April of 2005, Regulus submitted another research project, entitled “Processo para manufatura de artefatos de ouro colorido” (Process for manufacturing colored gold artifacts). This time the goal was to study how to turn colored gold powder into solid pieces with which jewels could be made. The company got some US$ 55,000. “With that money we were able to produce a few pieces,” says Araújo.

Does anyone want colored gold?

Today colored gold alloys are fashionable, according to designer Regina Machado, trends consultant for the Instituto Brasileiro de Gemas e Metais Preciosos (Brazilian Gems & Jewellery Trade Association, IBGM). “Many companies are investing on jewelry made of different gold hues,” she says. “The design can use a variety of chromatic combinations of metals and gems. As a result, there’s an enormous diversity of light and color effects that gives contemporary jewelry a new fashion mood," she analyzes enthusiastically.

Brazil’s jewelry market, according to the Associação dos Joalheiros do Estado de São Paulo (State of São Paulo Jewelry Trade Association, Ajesp), was worth US$ 2.5 billion in 2006, a 5 percent increase from 2005; and generates 380,000 direct jobs. Ajesp figures indicate that the exports of Brazil’s jewelry production chain, which includes stones, gold, jewelry, costume jewelry and coated objects, reached US$ 1.2 billion in 2006, 35 percent more than in the previous year. In gold jewelry alone were exported US$ 115 million in 2006, a 15% increase compared to 2005. The volume has encouraged companies to invest more in research, much of it in the area of colored gold alloys. Both Regulus and Jackie-O decided to conduct their own research. But there are companies that, in order to investigate technologies for colored gold alloys, prefer to invest in partnerships with universities.

One of them is South Africa’s AngloGold Ashanti, which has an agreement with the State University of Minas Gerais (Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, UEMG), in Belo Horizonte. The mining company, whose headquarters in Latin America are located in the city of Nova Lima, in the Greater Belo Horizonte area, funded the set up of the Research Laboratory for Gold Alloys (Laboratório de Pesquisa em Ligas de Ouro) within the University’s Study Center of Gem and Jewelry Design (Centro de Estudos em Design de Gemas e Jóias). The company also invested in equipment, tools and inputs such as gold and silver. In the lab UEMG’s students may conduct essays with unconventional alloys for application in new products. Thus the colored gold alloys’ market is competitive – PIPE’s companies are not alone.

PIPE directly into Phase II

In 2005 there was a disagreement among Regulus’ partners and the company was discontinued. In its place were created Aluvium and, in the beginning of 2007, Araújo’s Jackie-O. The company spent most of the year settling at the Sorocaba Technological Business Incubator (Incubadora Tecnológica de Empresas de Sorocaba, Intes), in the city of Sorocaba, in the interior of the State of São Paulo. “I chose that incubator because it’s close to São Paulo and the rent is reasonable,” explains Araújo. The former partners created Aluvium. Both companies have kept the technology created by Regulus, which throughout its lifetime had operated out of the Incubator Center of Technological Companies (Centro de Incubação de Empresas Tecnológicas, Cietec), set up at the Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research (Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, Ipen), in the University of São Paulo’s campus. The new company has already resorted to PIPE. Given the previous experience and the projects’ success, this time Fapesp approved the research project “Manufatura de peças de ouro colorido” (Manufacture of colored gold pieces) without requiring feasibility studies – in other words, straight into Phase II. In September approximately US$ 220,000 were given to the company for purchasing equipment and starting the industrial production of colored gold pieces, scheduled to begin within six months.

The main innovation of Regulus and Jackie-O’s R&D project is that it’s geared to keeping foundry aside from the process of turning pure gold into a jewel. Pure gold is so soft and flexible that it’s not adequate for jewelry. Pure gold is 24-carat gold; for jewelry, it’s “impure” gold that is used – usually 18 carats: 75 percent gold and 25 percent another metal, in general silver or copper. With such mixture gold becomes more resistant and gets different hues: greenish, yellowish, reddish. The alloy is obtained through foundry: the metals are mixed while in a liquid state.

The technology Jackie-O uses is different: the alloy will be made from powders. The process is called “high-energy grinding”. It begins in a small mill, a cylinder about 10 centimeters (4 inches) high by 5 (2 inches) centimeters in diameter inside which there are tiny steel balls. Gold blades .15-milimeter (.006 inches) thick are placed inside the cylinder with a type of plastic. The mill is then turned on; it shakes at a frequency of 30 hertz (30 cycles per second), performing a movement similar to a number 8, grinds the gold and turns it into powder. The polymer works as the controlling agent of the process, preventing the gold powder particles from clustering and forming larger balls.

Next the powder of other metals is mixed with the gold powder. Which metals? That’s the gimmick: it depends on the color wanted. “To get yellow or red silver and copper are added,” Araújo explains. “Depending on the proportion of each of these metals the alloy will be yellowish (more silver) or reddish (more copper).” If the alloy is made of gold and silver it’s going to be green. In order to get purple, gold must be combined with aluminum. Nickel or platinum make white gold; with chromium is made olive green; and with cobalt, black. According to Araújo, the advantage of this process is that with it it’s possible to control with precision the alloy’s chemical composition, and thus to fine tune the color.

From powder to solid pieces

After the powder alloy is obtained it’s necessary to turn it into solid pieces. That’s made by another device, in which the powder is pressed and compacted at a pressure between 2 and 7 megapascals (a megapascal corresponds to a pressure of one kilogram per square millimeter). For the conventional colors (yellow, red, purple, red and white) the process ends here. For blue, olive green and black there’s one more step. “Those alloys must be oxidized in a high temperature oven [about 400o degrees C, or 752o F] for about one hour,” says Araújo.

Once ready, these alloys may be used for manufacturing jewels. Now what needs to be done is to scale produce them and put them in the market. “With the process we’ve invented we’re going to develop products that are not available in the market. The idea is to sell them to jewelers or even to individual customers.”