My first recovery is not bad at all, but I've a question.

I got 4.3 grams of gold dust after adding sodium metabisulfite to acid, but I don't have any equipment to melt it. Considering the color of the gold dust, I assume the dust have some non-gold elements in it and will lost some of it's weight after melting. I'd like to learn how much of it's weight will be lost, so that I can decide whether this work is worth to keep on for me and it's worth to buy that equipment. My decision is if the loss is less than %20, than I'm good to go, more than %20 will be the end of my gold dreams.

Anyone weighed the dust before and after melting? I'll be appreciated to hear your advice, thanks.

For an answer, it may help to post pictures, and let people know what the gold was recovered from, and how it was done.

jimdoc said:

For an answer, it may help to post pictures, and let people know what the gold was recovered from, and how it was done.

Click to expand...

I'm definitely not sure about the photo quality of my neolithic camera, have not used it for years, but I can tell all the process. I recovered %90 of the gold from tablet computers and %10 from cell phones. Process was the usual, nitric acid for base metals, aqua regia for gold and sodium metabisulfite for precipitation. I excluded the parts that needs to be crushed, so this time only cpus, pins, fingers and boards. I hope that will help.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=325&hilit=getting+your+gold+pure+shining

Read through this thread about Harold's wash procedure. It will dramatically clean up your gold powder and remove a lot of the contaminating metals before you melt.

Crazy cat daddy said:

I got 4.3 grams of gold dust after adding sodium metabisulfite to acid, but I don't have any equipment to melt it. Considering the color of the gold dust, I assume the dust have some non-gold elements in it and will lost some of it's weight after melting.

Click to expand...

Why? What color is it? What color did you expect it to be? Gold precipitated as you describe is usually tan to brown to black, depending on a host of conditions.

Why do you expect it to lose weight when you melt it? Are you planning to use some technique during the melt that would cause the non-gold elements to disappear during the melt?

I'd like to learn how much of it's weight will be lost, so that I can decide whether this work is worth to keep on for me and it's worth to buy that equipment. My decision is if the loss is less than %20, than I'm good to go, more than %20 will be the end of my gold dreams.

Anyone weighed the dust before and after melting? I'll be appreciated to hear your advice, thanks.

Click to expand...

That's an impossible question to answer. If you and I start with the same material, and follow the same process, we can end up with quite different results. There are simply too many variables involved. You can buy a MAPP gas torch at the hardware store, a melting dish from eBay, and some borax from your grocery store. That will melt your gold. Then you'll know what you recovered from your material by your processes. Besides, it's magical to hold that first gold button/bb in your hand.

Dave

FrugalRefiner said:

Why? What color is it? What color did you expect it to be? Gold precipitated as you describe is usually tan to brown to black, depending on a host of conditions.

Why do you expect it to lose weight when you melt it? Are you planning to use some technique during the melt that would cause the non-gold elements to disappear during the melt?

Click to expand...

It's brown, just I expected. I watched some videos so I didn't surprised to see the result. (Nitric acid part was much more slower than I thought BTW, I'll try hydrochloric acid+hydrogen peroxide the next time)

FrugalRefiner said:

That's an impossible question to answer. If you and I start with the same material, and follow the same process, we can end up with quite different results. There are simply too many variables involved. You can buy a MAPP gas torch at the hardware store, a melting dish from eBay, and some borax from your grocery store. That will melt your gold. Then you'll know what you recovered from your material by your processes. Besides, it's magical to hold that first gold button/bb in your hand.

Dave

Click to expand...

I've already a gas torch but I thought torch would blow the gold dust into the air so I need an electric melting system or something, how will I prevent flow of the torch to blow the gold to puff out? Gold has a very high specific weight, will it be enough to prevent this?

Look for a video of someone melting their gold. I usually went around the pile of gold powder until the edges start to melt and that would spread to the inner part of the pile. Just do it slowly and in a place where you can recover the powder if you do blow it out of the dish.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GP6h7sCtiY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOH9djcbdic