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ssy

New member
Joined
Nov 26, 2017
Messages
2
Hello everybody. I am new to this forum.
I'd be happy if someone could help me with the following:
I've attached pictures of my gold chloride solution (yellow color) & the subsequent powder after drying (a mix of white, blue...green...yellow fades). Got it after treating circuit boards with HCl & Sodium Hypochlorite.
My problem is: what should I do now to remove the base metals?
Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks a lot.
I just separated the yellow stuff out of the solution. It was precipitated with Zinc powder. Then I just dried it. Oh! The pics. I just faced problems uploading. Will try to fix it asap!
Many thanks again.
 
Gentlemen,

I have three big batches of gold powder that I have already mixed borax in and then did test smelts on all 3. Each seems to be contaminated with base metals. My thoughts are to dissolve the gold again in AR and remove the base metals and wash again repeating the washing several times. My concern is what to do with the borax. It has not been melted yet so it is still in its original form. What do you recommend as the method of removing it first or do I need to? I know, I should not have mixed the batches with borax before the testing phase. I won't do that ever again. These lessons are getting expensive. Please help as I am being humbled at every turn.
 
Water will remove the borax as he said.
Did you try washing the gold powder in hcl to remove the base metals before you tried melting it?
 
No, I have not boiled it in the HCL yet. I was going to do that after I removed all the borax. I really appreciate your help. I know for the experienced refiner these questions are redundant and likely annoying, but I really do appreciate the help. I have been studying the Hoke book and other sources to educate myself but sometimes the answers just aren't in the books.

Thank You again.
 
An update,

I have broken the borax prills, and gold powder into a fine powder again. I divided the powder into two batches as they were large batches to start with. I placed each in separate 5 gal buckets and filled with hot water. Since the borax was in prill form I stirred well and then pour off each bucket thru a screen and into another 5 gal bucket for each and added fresh hot water again. The borax has either dissolved as you said it would or was caught in the screen when entering the second bucket of hot water. After a few minutes I transferred again with more fresh hot water and discovered the borax is 98% dissolved. I have what appears to be a massive amount of black powder that is settling very quickly. I am not assuming it is all gold by any means and expect there will be a pretty fair amount of base metals that need to come off next. So, any more suggestions. I heard boil it in HCL, are there any other ideas or is that the best option for me at this point? Thanks again Gentlemen. If we all lived close I would take us all out for drinks when I succeed with this endeavor and all thanks to you. Thank You for the help.
 
My normal was procedure with fairly clean Gold powder is a boiling water wash (boil the powder for a couple of minutes in a flask) then a very hot HCl wash for a few minutes (no need to vigorously boil the HCl) then two more water washes like the first. I have consistently produced 99.8%+ with this, but probably started with reasonably pure powder. I don't bother washing powder from a very dirty drop, I just go for a re-refine straight away, it is difficult washing dirty powder because it just doesn't settle like clean Gold.

If you are concerned about purity, you can always do another refine, at that point you will have almost no baser metals left.

How did you precipitate the Gold ? Was the solution absolutely crystal clear before precipitation ? How much of what kind of material did you start with ? This will give us a good idea of how much Gold you should expect.
 
It actually came from 3 batches of 3 lbs, for each batch of reverse electroplate using the standard cell with sulfuric. Precipitation was in the water as it was diluted and allowed to settle. Then ammonia was used to clear the base metals and I don't think it did a very good job. The quality of the items stripped is high and expected yield is suppose to be in the 3 to 4 grms per lb range x 3 lbs per batch x 3 batches and all are combined now in the 2 5 gal buckets waiting for the next step. There looks to be a large amount of black powder and when I did one batch of smelting, (small batch) I saw a large amount of gold in the flux but it also had the base metals and so I stopped everything. The display of gold was exciting until it wouldn't gather. Not wanting to lose it all I stopped and asked for help.
 
Mountain Man said:
It actually came from 3 batches of 3 lbs, for each batch of reverse electroplate using the standard cell with sulfuric. Precipitation was in the water as it was diluted and allowed to settle. Then ammonia was used to clear the base metals and I don't think it did a very good job. The quality of the items stripped is high and expected yield is suppose to be in the 3 to 4 grms per lb range x 3 lbs per batch x 3 batches and all are combined now in the 2 5 gal buckets waiting for the next step. There looks to be a large amount of black powder and when I did one batch of smelting, (small batch) I saw a large amount of gold in the flux but it also had the base metals and so I stopped everything. The display of gold was exciting until it wouldn't gather. Not wanting to lose it all I stopped and asked for help.

Ahh, I see, I read the top post and assumed you had worked with a Gold Chloride solution, I understand better now.

Are you set up for a normal re-refine ? If not, are you able to hook up with someone local who can do the re-refine for you ? That would be the easy way to clear up your powder.

There is probably also not much reason to smelt the black powder from the cell, have you tried simply melting it ?
 
Mountain Man said:
The quality of the items stripped is high and expected yield is suppose to be in the 3 to 4 grms per lb range x 3 lbs per batch x 3 batches and all are combined now in the 2 5 gal buckets

I think your expectations are a bit out of line with the general reality of yields from boards... do you have picture or know where these boards came from? Even gold fingers don't average this high... knowing what you started with might help us help you.
 
I did try to melt it. That was the little batch to make sure everything would go okay for the big batches. That is the one that I saw a large display of gold in the beginning part of the melt. Then it would not gather and so I stopped and asked for help. I thought I had base metals remaining when it would not gather and so began my journey to try and correct what I did wrong. I used the ammonia per the instructions and washed it several times afterwords to make sure all base metal and ammonia traces were gone. I just looked at the buckets and it is settling again with what appears to be a large amount of black powder. I feel there may or likely is still base metals in with it but, I kept my temperature down in the optimum range during the stripping process so I would expect the base metals to be in the low range but they seem to be very prevalent in the fluid. I was thinking that I should now treat with another dose of ammonia and try to clean more base metals out and then re wash several times again before trying to melt. What are your thoughts in light of what I just told you?
 
Cool, so, I would try to melt half a teaspoon of the black material in a crucible, but not pre-mix it with any flux (borax ?), then when the black material has melted into a ball, add a teaspoon or so of borax to it. (Obviously coat the crucible with borax before adding the powder)

Whenever I have recovered Gold with a Sulfuric cell, I have always done a normal refine after just to ensure there are no base metals. I don't think any amount of washing will improve your situation much at this point, without knowing what is in there, it is very difficult to know how to wash it out.

The ammonia would have been to wash out AgCl, HCl will wash out CuCl, water will wash out water soluble salts. The problem is if you have metal in there and not metal salts, washing will not help much, you end up having to remove the contamination with acids, so you may as well re-refine.

If you are able to melt some of the black powder using the method above, you may be able to have the blob XRF'ed and at least know what the contamination is and whether it is worth removing.

edit - sorry, I just read above that you already have the borax mixed in, that makes things quite a bit harder than it has to be, but it also looks like you have dissolved the borax away with water, so if you now have just black powder, you can try as per above.
 
Okay, that is pretty much what I was thinking I would likely have to do next if the base metals are still in there. Having you say it makes me feel much better, and that maybe my line of thinking is starting to follow more experienced refiners like yourself. I will continue to let it settle out and wash until I can get it down to powder that I can dry. It likely will take until tomorrow, but I will let you know as soon as I get to that point. Unless you feel like I should go ahead and just refine with the HCL and move forward that way.
 
Update,

I just checked the buckets again, and it is still cloudy but, I shined a very powerful spot light into the bucket. The fluid is now a medium chocolate brown. I can not see the bottom of the buckets yet, because of the choc. color cloud in the bucket. I think I should continue to wait and see if it settles, but, if you think I should pour it off then I will. I don't know if that is the base metals and or borax or if it is gold. If it is borax and impurities shouldn't I pour it off and wash again or should I wait it out. What do you think about it all now?

Thank you very much for your help and input.
 
Can you post up a picture of what you are seeing ? is your powder in water because you were washing the borax out ? The powder from a Sulfuric cell is very fine and will definitely take a while to settle
 
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