Gold, Platinum mix.

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Mountain Man

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I have a question. I have a friend who says he has a mix of material that he wants me to process for him.
He claims he has had the material assayed and it came back as 50% pure gold and 50% platinum. My question is how do I separate the gold from the platinum and how do I process the platinum once they are separated? I know nothing about processing platinum or the best way to separate the 2. He claims he has a pound of the material.

I would be very grateful for any and all advice on the method of separation and recovery of the 2 materials.

Thank you for your help.
 
If there's Platinum in there in those quantities then I would recommend sending it to Lou on here.
 
Now I have not tried this but it should work.
First melt and pour shot. (That is, if it is not all ready finely divided).
If, if you have a way to boil concentrated sulfuric safely,
you could just boil this alloy.
Platinum goes into solute. Gold is left rather pure.
I am sure Lou will be along shortly if this is a bunk idea.
Should add that the gold will be somewhat difficult to wash free of sulfuric.
 
Refining platinum is not for the faint hearted it comes with some health issues, first off you need a good hood and a scrubber, if you don’t have those do not try it.
The method that our dear friend Miss Hoke advises is to dissolve the gold in cold AR which should remove the gold into solution and leave most of the platinum behind but it will dissolve some of it, precipitate the gold from the solution after filtering it rinse well and re refine the gold powder with different reagents to help remove any traces of the platinum, personally at that point I would cement both solutions and rinses using copper add to the platinum remaining from the first digest and send it away to a pro like Lou for further refining, PGM salts are positively dangerous so gloves protective wear and clean working are essential even to this point and as stated earlier you definitely need that hood and scrubber to contemplate processing any PGM.
 
It's all in this thread

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=6200
 
Have you considered making a high silver alloy (say 90% silver), and pouring shot, using nitric parting to help dissolve much of the platinum with the silver, form the gold and remaining platinum, before moving on to aqua regia to get the rest of the platinum and gold separated...
Or alloying with more gold to get the platinum of the alloy down to a low percentage.
 
Platdigger said:
I would say they just barely scratched the surface in that thread.

I don’t think you’ll find a better step by step of bromate hydrolysis than what 4metals posted without paying someone a few grand a day to teach you.

But I absolutely agree...they still barely scratched the surface.

There’s a lot of ways to approach it.

My opinion would be to melt with 3x as much copper, cornflake then dissolve in nitric. Dissolve well washed filtrate from that with chlorine gas + HCl, then continue on as 4metals posted, without having to cook all the nitrates out, which is when you’d expose yourself to the most Pt.

I don’t feel the danger of Pt is mitigated by cementing...if you are going to put it in solution with chloride, you might as well finish the job....but, if it were me, I’d also probably just sell a 50/50 Au/Pt alloy as is and take the 10% hit on 7 oz of Pt ($500).

See, if I’m going to go through the danger of refining Pt, I’m going to do it in its entirety. I’m going to have a dedicated space, with health and safety being top priority....and in my mind, Theres no point in doing it for a one time paycheck of $500 more.



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butcher said:
Have you considered making a high silver alloy (say 90% silver), and pouring shot, using nitric parting to help dissolve much of the platinum with the silver, form the gold and remaining platinum, before moving on to aqua regia to get the rest of the platinum and gold separated...
Or alloying with more gold to get the platinum of the alloy down to a low percentage.

With a pound of raw material thats a lot of Silver. Also it's Pt not Pd Butcher.

Edit. Is this a situation where diluting the Pt down by such a huge factor actually allows the Nitric to dissolve it? I've left my original point in above for clarity.

Regards

Jon
 
Yes, that would be a situation, although I believe it only occurs in binary AgPt alloys.

I do know that something odd happens with Ag and PtCl62- that makes it extremely undesireable to mix platinum with silver.

As for that material...surely someone here on the forum will buy it as is, why separate it and risk losing anything. If it's just pure metals, that's what I would do.
 
I want to first thank all of you for your generosity and your willingness to help. I have a great respect for all of you who have gone thru the refiners fire, so to speak, to become the expert refiners that you have earned the right to be called. I appreciate all of your comments and the wealth of information you earned the right to share.

I have one more twist to this saga. The assay report says it is a pure mix of 50% gold and 50% platinum comprising 100% of the sample. My partner claims he has 40 tons of this material stored in a facility that he has not shared the location of with me. I do believe he is telling the truth about the amount of this material that he has. So, as you have already calculated we are talking about a lot of material to process as well as all the other logistics and security issues.

So, I am all ears and would like to hear what you think now with this new development.
 
Mountain Man said:
I have a friend who says he has a mix of material that he wants me to process for him [..] He claims he has a pound of the material.

Mountain Man said:
My partner claims he has 40 tons

Damn your partner-friend works fast, 1.4 billion in 7 days, that could explain the recent drop in prices :)

or perhaps they celebrate April 1st in Nigeria too ?

seriously, though, don't pay a dime till you have material in your hand, and do the tests yourself :)
 
So what kind of deal is our "friend" offering :?:

He sends you the material - YOU do an assay - THEN pay him out on YOUR assay :?:

OR - you pay him based on HIS assay - then he sends you the material :?:

How long have you known him & where/how did you meet him :?:

Edit to add; -----

Or - is he offering to give/send you the metal - you send him back the separated metals - minus your cut (percentage) AFTER doing the separation (no money involved) :?:

If he has 40 tons - why is he talking to a small hobby home refiner like you - instead of going direct to a large company like Johnson Matthey that can actually handle that volume :?:

With 40 tons - you should be able to put your friend together with a large refiner & get a "finders fee" :mrgreen:

Lou comes to mind :lol: :twisted:

I think I can answer those questions --- SCAM SCAM SCAM :!: :!: :!:

Kurt
 
Scammers always over-exaggerate amounts, so that only the most gullible ones take the bait.
 
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