How to increase the carat of alluvial gold?

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sugianto

Active member
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
34
Location
Indonesia
Dear Friends,
I have spending some time to collect gold from rivers. Now, I have around 300 grams.
Last time, we got 98 grams and we sold the gold, the shop make metal out of it. And they declare the quality is 89% of gold. However, to a miner friend there, said, he claim it is usually 91-92%.
I do not know what is the other content of the metal, and I need some advice, whether there are simple ways to increase the gold quality. Now the 300 gram gold is as the attached pic. Could I use Chloride acid or other kind of acid? I have the burner (propane+air), chemical bottle, crucible.
Thanks very much in advance.
 

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My intention is to increase the quality as high as possible in the simple ways. And extract other valuable contents possible in the placer gold.
 
Nice looking gold. You should be able to sell some of the larger nuggets (especially that 10+ gram nugget) at a premium without refining them.

Are there other shops that you can sell to, or is there only the one you're dealing with? If there are others, you could split your gold into two or more lots, each as similar as you can get them, and have each buyer melt a lot. If there is a big difference, you'll know who to sell to in the future.

It's possible that your material may only be 89%. Someone else may have gotten 91-92%, but yours might not be quite as good.

Dave
 
After the dissolution of your gold and dropping it (bringing
It back to elemental gold powders) you should have no less
Than 97%

If you then wash your gold you can attain 97%+
Or you could do the dissolution twice

But...

Until you know what the other 11% is I would proceed
Very cautiously as it may be a deadly mix
Hope this helps
Thanks steyr223 rob
 
FrugalRefiner said:
Nice looking gold. You should be able to sell some of the larger nuggets (especially that 10+ gram nugget) at a premium without refining them.

Are there other shops that you can sell to, or is there only the one you're dealing with? If there are others, you could split your gold into two or more lots, each as similar as you can get them, and have each buyer melt a lot. If there is a big difference, you'll know who to sell to in the future.

It's possible that your material may only be 89%. Someone else may have gotten 91-92%, but yours might not be quite as good.

Dave

Thanks a lot, actually, I have make the effort to sell to other shop. That is the most practical way, right?
But, I am concern, whether the other 10% might be other PMS?
 
steyr223 said:
After the dissolution of your gold and dropping it (bringing
It back to elemental gold powders) you should have no less
Than 97%

If you then wash your gold you can attain 97%+
Or you could do the dissolution twice

But...

Until you know what the other 11% is I would proceed
Very cautiously as it may be a deadly mix
Hope this helps
Thanks steyr223 rob

Rob, thanks for your kind reply. Do you mean by dissolution by AR and do the dropping?
Is it possible if I cooked the gold in one single Acid? Nitrate or HCL? Should it increase the percentage?
 
sugianto said:
steyr223 said:
After the dissolution of your gold and dropping it (bringing
It back to elemental gold powders) you should have no less
Than 97%

If you then wash your gold you can attain 97%+
Or you could do the dissolution twice

But...

Until you know what the other 11% is I would proceed
Very cautiously as it may be a deadly mix
Hope this helps
Thanks steyr223 rob

Rob, thanks for your kind reply. Do you mean by dissolution by AR and do the dropping?
Is it possible if I cooked the gold in one single Acid? Nitrate or HCL? Should it increase the percentage?

It would not increase the karat quality any significant percent just by send it through either acid wash. It would really depend on what other impurities are mixed with the gold that would determine the route you should take. You can try a sample in AR and see if you get a complete dissolving of the material then test your solution with stannous to see what other PM's might be mixed with your gold. or go ahead and drop your gold out of the solution and then test the solution to see if any other PM's show up in the test.
 
But, if the other content is silver and copper, acid wash would definitely take out the silver and copper right?
If the weight is not reduce significantly, can I assume the other content would most probably metal that only dissolve in AR?
 
sugianto said:
But, if the other content is silver and copper, acid wash would definitely take out the silver and copper right?
If the weight is not reduce significantly, can I assume the other content would most probably metal that only dissolve in AR?

You will not be able to to just run the material in one acid and wash it clean with an 87% to 92% purity because the gold will still trap some of the impurities even if they are just copper or silver. If you flatten the material out you might have a better chance.

If it were me I would run it through AR on the smaller material and on the larger material I would find a buyer that pays more for natural nuggets. But not knowing what material you have to work with and that you possibly have limited experience I would suggest you do some reading before you just jump into a situation like that and possibly cause yourself more problems.

This thread might help you some.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=22177&hilit=sulfamic+acid
 
89 percent is actually quite good for natural gold. I would see if someone could shoot it with an xrf gun. They may not be too reliable but at least it could show you what some of the other elements are.
 
Barren Realms 007 said:
sugianto said:
But, if the other content is silver and copper, acid wash would definitely take out the silver and copper right?
If the weight is not reduce significantly, can I assume the other content would most probably metal that only dissolve in AR?

You will not be able to to just run the material in one acid and wash it clean with an 87% to 92% purity because the gold will still trap some of the impurities even if they are just copper or silver. If you flatten the material out you might have a better chance.

If it were me I would run it through AR on the smaller material and on the larger material I would find a buyer that pays more for natural nuggets. But not knowing what material you have to work with and that you possibly have limited experience I would suggest you do some reading before you just jump into a situation like that and possibly cause yourself more problems.

This thread might help you some.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=22177&hilit=sulfamic+acid

very helpful. But, I have no experience in using AR.
 
If I make a roller, to thin the gold flake. Then boil the gold in Muriatic acid, will it works?
Or, according to Hoke, adding some copper and make an alloy bar, then boil in muriatic acid? The leftover, will be powder, mostly gold, right? And the base metal and silver will go into the muriatic acid.

If so, then can I increase, let's say, 5% from 92% to 97%?
 
If you have easy access to nitric acid I would suggest you look up inquartation.
Kadriver just posted a nice video showing how it's done.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=23555&hilit=inquartation

Then if you are curious if the remaining metals include PGM:s you should look up testing with stannous. Any silver or PGM:s should accumulate and is easily cemented back from the dissolved metals with a piece of copper.

Göran
 
You can use copper it just uses more acid, the other good reason to use silver is that should there be any platinum group metals it wil carry them into nitric.
 
sugianto said:
Thanks Goran. Do you think I can do it with copper, instead of silver?

Yes you can use copper insted of silver.

However IMHO this was an easy question to answer. And if you have to ask a question like this then you really need to put processing this on the back burner and do a lot of reading here on the forum because you are not ready to process this yet. If you are going to continue down this path without doing some reading and learning I fear that you will loose more values by processing this material at this point then what you will gain by processing it into a better product.

Please don't take that wrong but it is for your protection, safety and preservation of your values of your product.
 
Yes, you are right. I must do more readings and learning.

Actually, I have read hoke some years ago, and now refreshing the memory. But, I never practice refining, and I guess, here we can have a lot of expert, both in theory and practice.

Must thank all of you, for commenting and support.
 
Another thing to find out about is will you get more money from your efforts, will the jeweller pay you more for purer product, not just per gram but for the amount of gold you have to start with. For many the whole point is to realise the best deal for the least outlay and work/ time. For me it makes no difference if it's 10% or 99% pure the payout is just the same. If your buyer is only guessing the purity without assays he will be reducing his offer so refining may well pay, it will also tell you how good a deal you are getting.
The advice to study and learn is good but also investigate whether the extra effort will pay.
 
You are absolutely right. That is what I am trying to figure out.
If the other content is PGM, than my effort worth, if not, then I will just find a honest trader.
 
The reason many members refine is to find out how good their % deal is, if you sell fine product you can work out exactly what the deal is, in many cases cheap fast assays are not available and by refining they know what exactly they are selling.
Finding a good honest buyer can be hard but they are out there, always allow a little profit for all, I would rather sell at a slightly lower percentage of spot than get ripped by someone who can't make it pay any other way.
 
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