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Why does the Wohlwill process require a costly inventory of gold?

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A worker in safety gear walks beside a conveyor belt carrying ore at the Tanami gold mine in the arid, expansive landscape of the Tanami Desert. — gold processing The Tanami gold mine, Northern Territory, Australia.

The Wohlwill process requires a costly inventory of gold primarily because of the nature of its electrolysis method. To function, the process necessitates a substantial amount of gold to be maintained within the electrolyte solution, which consists of hydrochloric acid and gold chloride.1

Because this gold must remain in the system during the refining process to facilitate the transfer of metal from the anode to the cathode, it represents a significant amount of capital tied up in "in-process" inventory. While this method is highly effective for achieving 99.99 percent purity, the requirement to keep this large volume of gold on hand makes the process expensive compared to other chemical purification methods that do not require such extensive inventories.1