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Newbie17022

New member
Joined
Oct 7, 2018
Messages
1
Hi. I’m new to this. I am so confused. Nothing seems to be coming out right. Please help.
This is the situation... My aqua regia solution is very dark green with a tinge of a golden neon yellow hue. It’s been sitting for about a week. No more reaction. It has tiny pieces of gold still floating. I’ve added more nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, nothing happens. Stannous is negative. I’m my confusion I added SMB and nothing has separated. What am I doing wrong? Is the process completely screwed up now? A total loss? Please help. I’ll try to attach a photo. I’d be willing to talk on the phone if it would be easier.
 

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THE Dark green solution with a tinge of a golden neon yellow hue.

The dark green indicate lots of base metals like copper in solution, this indicates you were using aqua regia on base metals which may have had some gold, gold in the solution will normally show a yellow ring about the surface where the surface ring meets the glass.
Using aqua regia the gold should be as free from base metals as possible, the more trash in -more trash out, too much trash or base metals just complicate matters.

If all of the metals were not dissolved on the scrap, the base metals could have cemented out the dissolved gold.

Stannous chloride test cannot reduce the gold in the test(to show a violet colloid) if there is high oxidizers left in solution, here the high nitric content of your solution will not reduce your gold to a violet metal gold colloid in solution, the gold either stays dissolved or starts converting to metal and then again redissolves with the excess HNO3.

Add a clean bar of copper to cement out your values to recover your gold.

Learn how to deal with the toxic waste you have on your hands now.

Learn how to recover gold (aqua regia is a very poor choice in a recovery process).

Gain an understanding of safety in any process you use, understanding the dangers in every chemical reaction you perform, and what to do with the waste or byproducts...

When choosing a recovery process gain an understanding of its use before you begin...
Learn how to use aqua regia, and when to use it, and when some other process is needed or would be more effective.


Basically the Help you need you will find here in the forum through your own study. Study before trying things you really do not understand, this way you are learning from successfully educated experimentation, not by losing gold through uneducated experiments, or from trying something you do not understand, or by trying something you have seen some yahoo on U-Tube do in his garage.
 
Newbie17022 said:
Hi. I’m new to this. I am so confused. Nothing seems to be coming out right.

Been there, done that...

My advice for you is to start small - put aside your jar of mess for a week or two, study, and try to reliably repeat some of the acquaintance experiments described in the Hoke`s book. It can be done, it is not that hard...also we will gladly help you once you have done your homework.... BUT if you want to pursue this hobby, you will need a lot patience...

And please, please recognize the inherent dangers of acids, fumes and waste solutions, it is much too easy to seriously endanger yourself or others if you don`t know what you are doing... people have died man...
 
niks neims said:
.... BUT if you want to pursue this hobby, you will need a lot patience...

And please, please recognize the inherent dangers of acids, fumes and waste solutions, it is much too easy to seriously endanger yourself or others if you don`t know what you are doing... people have died man...

Patience is an understatement...... A couple of days ago I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in several years. During the "catch up" conversation the subject came around to my gold refining experiences and he was very amazed with the results. The man has several different degrees with two in Chemistry, he got his last bachelors degree when he 72. He is in his early 80's now and I was able to answer a couple of questions about refining he had never been able to work out on his own. It felt very good to be able to talk at his level for a change.

Patience and persistent study will go a long ways and being able to have a forum that can help when all else fails is a great benefit.
 
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