Shor International Method

Hello,

I used the method outlined by Shor - I used AR 3:1 instead of there Nitric substitute. I dissolved gold plated on copper - board scrap-

Then I used urea to remove the nitric -solution dark emarald green.

I used their storm precip., and no Au fell out of solution.

What can I do now? What is storm precipatant anyway?

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Tavish

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=4563&p=58041&hilit=+shor#p58041

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Some questions first...
- How much scrap did you start with?
- Was there any base metals left on the boards after you dissolved the gold?
- Did you remove any base metals before putting it in the AR?
- Have you watched lazersteves videos yet or taken the guided tour of the forum?
- Have you seen and read Hokes book?

If you answer these questions people can give you better advice. Here are some thoughts...

- E-scrap contains small amounts of gold so it takes a lot of it to get any big volume of pure gold.
- If there are base metals left after you have dissolved the gold in AR then the gold will cement out on the metals again.
- To dissolve all metals including gold in one go is to ask for problems.
- lazersteve have a very educational website, http://www.goldrecovery.us/
- Hoke is required reading on this forum. It's old but so are gold too. :lol: (Download here)

Have fun and welcome again to one of the friendliest forums on the net.

8)

/Göran

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

I have now read Hoke's book. Forgive me for thinking that a distibutor would publish reliable info when selling their products.

At least I have gained some valued information.

There were no base metals left on the boards. I believe that I should have at least an ounce of Au in solution. I ran three batches. Two of the batches turned dark brown when I added the every so secret storm. I let them stand over night and still no mud. So, now that I know that the gold is adhering to the base metals how do I get it back? Should I just give up or is it worth persuing?

Thanks Victor Tavish

Victor

What type of scrap did you start with and how many pounds?

What makes you believe there is 1 oz of gold in solution?

The more accurate you are with the information the more helpful the advice you receive will be.

I agree with qst42know, what you write about boards and ounces of gold doesn't seem right. You need a quite big lot to get an ounce. Tell us more about the background.

As the shore system is a closed process it's hard to give advice about that... but the brown coloration of the solution without dropping any gold sounds like you have some acid left in the solution that dissolves the gold as fast as it is dropping out of it. Are you sure you have eliminated all the nitric acid in your solution?

Remember one thing, you never lose your gold as long as you keep everything but you might misplace it on the way.

Make some stannous chloride and test your solutions. It might be that your gold doesn't drop because it isn't there.

/Göran

g_axelsson said:

- If there are base metals left after you have dissolved the gold in AR then the gold will cement out on the metals again.


/Göran

Click to expand...

Heres a question thats been plaguing me, .... Just how fast does the gold cement out onto the base metals, if any are left?

Ive been "flash Stripping" high grade pins with pool chlorine and hcl in beakers with good results and little or no cementing i noticed ( i add dry pool chlorine, then pins the hcl, swirl untill de plated then dump solution, in a matter of less than 1 minute. the copper pins remain whole, solution is generally brite yellow with visible results when dropped with smb.

just curious on this cementing thing, as ive cemented silver from photo fixer and it took a while. Im just wondering how big an issue this really is?

Gold Trail said:

Ive been "flash Stripping" high grade pins with pool chlorine and hcl in beakers with good results and little or no cementing i noticed ( i add dry pool chlorine, then pins the hcl, swirl untill de plated then dump solution, in a matter of less than 1 minute. the copper pins remain whole, solution is generally brite yellow with visible results when dropped with smb.

Click to expand...

I'm sure it depends on many factors like concentration, pH, and surface area to name a few.

I've actually run a few tests 'flash stripping' by shaking pins with HCl-Cl and DBC (Dibutyl Carbitol). During testing I found that the copper would actually begin to cement the gold back out of the DBC as it was absorbed into the upper layer. The gold would mostly remain at the interface between the layers. I never really pursued it much beyond those two or three tests.

Perhaps dumping the solution off quickly as you did is a better idea than using the DBC. Maybe the excess chlorine from the tablets is why you did not get cementation right away. I used bleach and HCl as the source of chlorine.

Steve

lazersteve said:

Gold Trail said:

Ive been "flash Stripping" high grade pins with pool chlorine and hcl in beakers with good results and little or no cementing i noticed ( i add dry pool chlorine, then pins the hcl, swirl untill de plated then dump solution, in a matter of less than 1 minute. the copper pins remain whole, solution is generally brite yellow with visible results when dropped with smb.

Click to expand...

I'm sure it depends on many factors like concentration, pH, and surface area to name a few.

I've actually run a few tests 'flash stripping' by shaking pins with HCl-Cl and DBC (Dibutyl Carbitol). During testing I found that the copper would actually begin to cement the gold back out of the DBC as it was absorbed into the upper layer. The gold would mostly remain at the interface between the layers. I never really pursued it much beyond those two or three tests.

Perhaps dumping the solution off quickly as you did is a better idea than using the DBC. Maybe the excess chlorine from the tablets is why you did not get cementation right away. I used bleach and HCl as the source of chlorine.

Steve

Click to expand...

I think he used the granular pool chlorine. You have to watch which table you get there are 2 diffrent kinds.
Adding dry pool chlorine produces a LOT of gas

gold trail
what did you use to cement silver from fixer?

Try digesting some of your clean pins completely.

When they are all gone heat the solution to rid it of free chlorine and test in a spot plate with stannous. I suspect you are leaving a significant amount behind.

joem - I used copper buss to cement the silver out.

Barren Realms 007 said:

[

I think he used the granular pool chlorine. You have to watch which table you get there are 2 diffrent kinds.
Adding dry pool chlorine produces a LOT of gas

Click to expand...

correct not all pool chlorine is calcium hyper chlorate EDITED by Lou: Actually, it's calcium hypochlorite, Ca(OCl)2. Seems pedantic, but it is important that we use proper names.

this method produced faster results then a cell or a tumbler cell. however the off gas-ing was horrid

I have hundreds of pounds of pins and have no luck with a tumbler cell I made. It most certainly didnt work as well or as fast as the one on this forum. the recovery was low and a complete waste of time. I dont have time to do one pin at a time with a conventional cell either. I sent some samples out to a refinery and received some tempting prices Im considering just selling them.

Steve, the reason for using the pool chlorine insted of bleach is that bleach is about 3% calcium hypochlorite and pool chlorine is 60 to 80%

The more I stare at this growing pile of stuff i keep acumulating the more i just wanna sell it of and start over I dont ever think ill ever catch up. i just dont have time like i used to. Heck, this weekend is the first Ive logged into the forum in since February, I think.


I now see below that Steve mentioned the proper name.~Lou

Gold Trail said:

Steve, the reason for using the pool chlorine insted of bleach is that bleach is about 3% calcium hyperchloorate and pool chlorine is 60 to 80%

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Bleach is actually 5-10% sodium hypochlorite depending on the grade you get (consumer or industrial). The trichloro-s-triazinetrone 3" pool chlorinating tablets are around 90% available chlorine. The 3" calcium hypochlorite pool tablets are 65% available chlorine.

The problem with using the higher chlorine content chemicals, as you discovered, is that the excess chlorine you generate is wasted as toxic off gassing. Water only holds about 6.5 g of chlorine gas per liter at 25C, anything more is wasted. At 65% available chlorine it only takes 10 grams of calcium hypochlorite to saturate 1000 mL (1L) of water at 25C. Any more chlorination via calcium hypochlorite you add after the first 10 grams is wasted as toxic off gassing. Of course, some of the excess gas will be consumed dissolving the gold plating, approximately 1 additional gram of free chlorine (= ~1.5 g of calcium hypochlorite) is consumed per 1.8 grams of gold dissolved.

These numbers all go down as the heat of the reaction goes up.

Steve

My advice would be to avoid calcium hypochlorite altogether, mainly because Ca+2 is not necessarily always a spectator ion. Plain 3-6% sodium hypochlorite, "Chlorox" ought to be sufficient but carries the problem of excessively increasing solution volume.

Lou said:

My advice would be to avoid calcium hypochlorite altogether, mainly because Ca+2 is not necessarily always a spectator ion. Plain 3-6% sodium hypochlorite, "Chlorox" ought to be sufficient but carries the problem of excessively increasing solution volume.

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I have made very strong and cheap bleach/clorox with calcium hypochlorite and baking soda, the calcium drops as carbonate and can be easily filtered out before using the leach.

Is the shore system even supposed to be used for escrap? I thought it was for karated jewelry/scrap.

I tried the bleach for flash stripping, it worked, but the pins i tried it on had a stainless lock ring (mil spec) and they immediately cemented the gold out (turned black)

Lou, thanks for correcting me on the spelling. it was too late to run out to the shed....

Im in no rush for these pins, so i think im going to retort back to the crock pot method after all. Its simple and requires little attention. I have too much going on right now to be baby sitting bleaching solutions.

I know where i can get some cyanide for free but the drums its in are starting to leak at the bases and it would have to be transferred into other containers . Im just not up for all that

thanks for all the help, though

Ryan

Is the shore system even supposed to be used for escrap?

Click to expand...

No
It can be used on cpu's and very small pins,but it is absolutely no different than poormans AR,and prec. with copperas.

Has anyone used the Shor International replacement for AR as well as their precip? We're wanting to get away from Nitric and this appears to be a safer replacement that supposedly does the same thing. However, we're leaching ore containing microscopic gold and silver, not CPU or pins. We're highly concentrating the ore down to black sands to make it more economical. We thought we might try this method, but we'd love to hear any feedback. Thanks!!