electrolisys of gold impregnated carbon

one makes a solution of nacn with an oxidizer---, and uses carbon impregnated with gold in the vessels botton ,as a cathode,and hang iron sponge as the anode---pass a current of 3volts---the gold migrates to the iron sponge ,the sponge becomes yellow with the gold deposited in it---take the anode sponge out --and add another sponge---until no more gold passes to the sponge--------no more gold in the carbon----makes a new solution nacn solution and repeats the operation with more carbon------I did not use this process yet--but this are experiences of friends of mine-----i might have made errors like change the names ,cathode is the the steel wool and anode the impregnated granular carbon---in resume nacn is the electrolyte---anode is the gold inpregnated carbon--steel wool the cathode----i have many kilos of granular carbon wth gold in its pores,and am studiyng to put this project to work----if members with more experience in this type of electrolysis ,could give me ideas and sugestions,i will be glad----regards to all members
Arthur Kierski -------mahy ways to skin a cat

Never tried either method Arthur but to me if you could plate onto the steel wool it would reduce the processing time as you would need to ash the carbon before processing whereas with the wool you could rinse well and simply dissolve in AR.

Nickvc,thanks for the reply---i looked into a CWAMMEM book ,and just to clear ,the steel wool that is plated with gold stays as the cathode--and as you say,it ,the goldem wool is washed and put into aqua regia to dissolve and extract the gold------here in Brazil,now is 4,30 am---i woke up and opened my computer,and looked for replies of my thread,and saw yours----As we talked before, i have thousands of kilos of this carbon impregnated with gold(the carbon is in the form granules,and is full of pores where the gold ions rest)----in the previous thread,i told that i would burn the carbon in a semi open furnace,and then put the result of the burning into ar----i am giving you an historical,so that ,you will understand my situation(which is very priviliged)--i retired five years ago,because of my age and because ,i got tired of going after scrap---- from used rhodium plated solution,auto catalists, plating wires with gold,rh,pd ,and silver---what come around,i worked with---some times with small profits,sometimes with huge profits----ten years ago ,i was working mainly with making rh plating solutions--- i found myself with 100 ounces troy of rh----the rh price reached 10000 dollars an ounce--i stopped making rh plating,and sold my stock to some big precious metals traders--made almost one million----worked for more 5years as a hobby,with great help from this Forum--mainly with
cell phone scrap, to extract,au,pd, and ag------made many contacts,and a big company invited me to work with them----so now,i have rhodium scrap,this carbon,pd plating wires,this friday ,came 50 liters of used ruthenium plating solution to recuperate

continuation-----ruthenium to recuperate-----Now,i have all these scrap to work with,in their facility---to end this long story---last week i recuperated 200grams of rh---carbon is coming in this week,and they already bought a furnace-----that is why i make (ask) constant help from mine forum friends(i am a member since february 2008)----learned almost all i know,in this forum---the furnace method for carbon is good--but i will try to improve with electrolysis----my friends ,sugested to use the two ways------thanks,specially Nickvc,in following me in this journey
Arthur Kierski

I know the normal method with carbon is to incinerate it and then recover using AR but with large quantities I think you will have the same problem that I had with sweeps in that the bed of ash will stop full recovery of values as it will always have some hidden in the ash no matter how many times you rinse it, perhaps Deano can comment on this as he has huge experience using carbon and ashing.

At the begining i will incinerate in small vessels in 10---vessel with 1kilo of carbon in each vessel---my furnace has place for 10 vessels at the time----i calculate that it will take a few hours per day to transform the carbon to ash----if i make 10kilos a day---i might obtain de au that i wrote to you in PM-----the eletrolysis,i will do only testing---to use if the incineration is too slow----but i might buy another 1 or 2 furnaces (depending on the quantity of Carbon that comes in) vessel = iron retctangular trays----In resume:I will begin this week with the furnace---and see the results---i am waiting to finish the furnace instalation---and the trays that i made------the electrolysis i will make tests to see if it works----Thanks for advising me ,and telling the problems with the sweeps ash--- i had similar problems with the chips ash---but if one do not practise,he forget the problems---------that is the reason in incinerating in 1kilo lots---regards to you------------------------------------- Arthur KiersKI

A lot of really smart people have tried to find a way to recover the residual gold from stripped carbon.

Running an electro cell does not even cover the power cost in recovered gold.

High pressure high temperature stripping circuits will get some of the gold out but there is no known way to recover all of the gold apart from ashing the carbon.

Even in an ashing circuit there will be volatilisation losses unless a lot of thought has gone into the bag-house scavenge part.

Generally the losses increase rapidly with scale, small losses with kilos of carbon, major losses with hundreds of kilos.

If you are working with < 30ppm carbon you need to put a reasonable tonnage rate through to cover costs.

There is a major difference in difficulty of recovery from carbon between a synthetically loaded carbon and a plant loaded carbon.

A lot of people will trumpet their recoveries from low gold level loaded carbon, it usually turns out that they are using synthetically loaded carbon and not plant loaded carbon.

Gold lockup in plant carbon becomes noticeable after two strip cycles from new.

Deano

Deano,i realized that it is a difficult task----the carbon which i am speaking about comes from gold mines where a cyanide system is used and the gold is collected with the carbon----this carbon after the gold is extracted, leaves behind some gold---Is this gold that is ashed in a furnace---it is the gold left in the carbon----the extraction in the mines with NaCN ,and collected by ,the carbon yields--- 20 grams of gold after this ,instead of throwing away this carbon--the carbon comes to me---i turn this carbon into ash with the help of the furnace---- about 2 to 3grams more ,is recuperated------thanks to reading this---
yours ; Arthur kierski