A method, and systems in which such method may be practiced, allow for the separation of elemental metals from metal alloy. A metal alloy is atomized to form metal alloy particulates. The metal alloy particulates are exposed to an oxidizing agent, such as chlorine gas in the presence of a salt, such as NaCl, an acid, such as HCl, and water. The resulting solution may be filtered to remove particulates, reduced, filtered, reduced, filtered, and so on. In aspects, the method is used to refine gold alloy by oxidation of elemental sponge gold to gold chloride followed by reduction to pure elemental gold.