Extracting gold from wood

Hello there. Can you help me? I'm looking for alternative to cyanide and aqua-regia or thiosulphide to leach gold from wood, which acts like a carbon in absorbing cold. Solution of Caustic soda and NaCN from elution came in contact with the wood and now it has been taken to lab for extraction, but no gold dissolved despite fire assay indicating gold in wood

Got to be totally honest I can’t see wood working in absorbing gold from solutions, perhaps had you used charcoal maybe so, what leads you to believe this will work?
If it does I’ve learnt something new and I’m always a fan of that.

Hi...thanks for apt reply. I agree that gold is normally only adsorbed rather than absorbed into activated carbon. My confusion lies with the mystery of the fire assay from a reputable company indicating the presence of gold in the wood.

It depends what the wood was soaked in to absorb the gold, it could be just a surface trace which I suspect which an assay would detect but if you then try and refine it it will not ever be a viable source as the surface cannot hold enough gold to make it a good proposition.
My question still stands what makes you think that wood can or will absorb gold in solution, I’m fascinated as to why you think this.

I followed the line of thinking that gold is known to penetrate hard semi non-porous surfaces such as concrete and attach to metallics due to its high specific gravity, given a period of time ofcoarse. Wood, which is made up of carbon, exposed to gold cyanide and caustic soda solution, over a period of over 50 years, has an affinity for the Au(CN)2- complex although not activated. Carbon is known, after all, as a preg robber.

This is why most gold processing plants have an additional CIL or carbon in leach section to supplement their carbon in pulp (CIP). The CIP allows for longer leaching time of high grade pulp without competing impurities that might adsorb gold cyanide or rob the activated carbon added in order to adsorb gold being leached. CIL on the other hand adds carbon simultaneously with leaching cyanide in order to adsorb gold cyanide before impurities such as waste wood in target slurry can adsorb thus rob gold cyanide.

If I was you I’d try using carbon and then ash it, why try and invent a new wheel when the one we have is cheap and works?

Thanks nickvc. I was asked to find an alternative to cyanide because it's dangerous to use in the lab

The problem you will have is that gold is very unreactive and few chemicals can affect or dissolve it, virtually all that can have been fully dissected and discussed here on the forum, perhaps the lab needs to relax if it wants to process gold, all chemicals can be dangerous but if you follow good safety procedures and have proper equipment it’s a limited risk with known dangers.

Why not make carbon from the wood then ash it?

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baltyboweni said:

Thanks nickvc. I was asked to find an alternative to cyanide because it's dangerous to use in the lab

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If you're running a proper lab environment then cyanide is probably the least dangerous way to do this.