First recovered gold from e-scrap

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Lahst

Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
7
My first experience with processing e-scrap. First thing, i am an absolute newbie. I hung out at my best friends fathers plating shop for many years until they closed their doors a few years back. My friend and i ended up with some e-scrap of which we processed the easiest ones to process over the week end. I watched kadriver's video to learn more about the process (thank you for your contributions) . I think we did OK for our first time. I learned alot in this basic process. I love input, so feel free. One photo is the processors that were used for recovery. 5.7 grams recovered. Other photos are things to be done later.

Scotty
 

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That's certainly a good start, well done.

There's ways to improve upon the purity of that gold but given this is your first "try" I think you've got a pretty good result.

Jon
 
Thank you Jon. Yes purity was not the highest. I have alot to learn. My main goal for this run was safety and structure, the gold was a bonus. I love to learn. Thanks to everyone who made this forum possible.

Scotty
 
Nice looking button Lahst!

Don't neglect potential collector value on some of the older / unusual stuff. I'm not a collector, so I can't give any specific guidance, but some of the stuff on the right side of the last picture might be worth more than the value of the gold. I may be wrong on that, but it's always a good idea to check before you process things that "look" pretty. Someone else may be able to share their opinion.

Dave
 
denim said:
Nice job! Your button looks a lot better than my first attempt.

Dennis

Haha Dennis that is actually a very very good point. Mine looked like a small piece of rabbit poo. :lol:
 
Thank you for the kind words. I did alot of reading on this forum before i attempted anything that would harm me or be a catastrophic faliure. The ONLY way i was able to acheive this product (even though its not perfect) was from all of you. I thank each and everyone of you for the knowledge i have obtained and i hope to humbly learn more.
Scotty
 
Here is a close up of the button, any ideas on the reason for the "feather" looking structure?
 

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Congratulations! Now you are hooked! :D

The feathery look comes from crystal patterns formed when cooling. Reminds me of my first refined button.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=19840
In my case it was probably palladium contamination and/or a tiny bit of iron contamination from my melt setup. In your case it could be some other contamination.

How does the melting dish look? Did the borax remain clear or did it turn black?
The look of the melting dish and borax can reveal a lot about the purity and contamination.

Göran
 
From the description and look of the button I would guess on a purity of more than 99%. I have no idea of what the contamination could be though.

When gold (or other metals) crystallizes the contamination are pushed out of the crystals and creates an alloy between the pure metal grains. The molten gold with the impurity have a lower melting point than the pure metal, so first the pure crystals solidify, then at the end the impure alloy.
I think that the branches are pure gold crystals and the impurity is locked in between the branches.

Sometimes you get an alloy where the impurity matches the crystal lattice and actually forms what could be considered a composition with a fixed formula, like the 20% aluminium and 80% gold that gives purple gold. In this case you don't get the enrichment of contamination between pure gold, the aluminium is spread out evenly in the gold.

Göran
 
Thanks for the insight into purple gold, is the percentage by weight or volume? Also i had the chance to get the button analyzed, the culprit is silver. I goofed somewhere. Maybe not enough tap water to cause the silver to convert into silver clorides? Im still happy with the results and i will be running some fingers this weekend.
 

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Geo said:
I've seen iron contamination make that pattern. Usually when I do a drop using copperas.

That maybe from the impure Copperas product. I drop a lot using the pure product (Ferrous II Sulphate) as opposed to an impure mix like Copperas Jeff, and never get any iron in the gold.

Frankly it's cheaper to buy the pure product than Copperas from what people tell me.
 
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