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Goldmember123

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 31, 2020
Messages
69
Ok i already know in an amateur, and i make rookie mistakes ! So we have already established that ! plus a few of you guys said i could come back and ask questions when needed ! So what i did was i took all the gold tape which is what call it ! I shown pics of it in my previous post ! I took my oxy-acetylene torch and i scorched the gold tape to and i picked out all these little metal beads that were in the bottom of the scorched pile of gold tape, which i think is mostly copper and other base metals but i had an accident i knocked over a planter and it broke and got dirt all in my ash so i used a magnet to grab any lead out and rinsed it a few times so it looks like dirt settled on top of this dark gray almost black fine looking dust ! Is the dust at the very bottom of the container my gold ! Im just looking for a yes, no or maybe answer because everybody in the forum knows that im the rookie of all rookie beginners ! Thank you guys leave some meat on my bones ! Lol
 

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Looking at the photos I can see no reason why you can’t just dissolve all the metals then filter out the dirt and then precipitate any gold you have from your solution.
 
Ok how should i dissolve the metals to separate the dirt ? Do i use aqua regia to dissolve metals then use smb to precipitate the gold from solution after i filter out the dirt ?
 
Probably not a lot of gold in there and anything you got isn't visible any longer. By melting the copper base the gold dissolved into the copper and is now a part of the alloy.

I've thrown more gold than that in the trash. Isn't it so, Nick? :lol:

The ribbon cables are usually not very high yielding so chasing after this gold is going to cost you more than the monetary worth of the gold. But if you succeed to recover it you will have gained knowledge.

The first thing I would do is to incinerate the garbage. What this does is it burns away any organic matter and carbon that might affect your chemistry. In mining circuits, carbon is called a preg robber, it locks in gold in the carbon. So incineration until any coal left is turned into ash.

After that you could probably select between a couple of roads. Which one that is best for you depends on your proficiency, what the major contaminants are and what chemicals and equipment you got available.

If I had a good supply of nitric acid I would then go on and dissolve the copper, which would leave the gold as tiny dust particles, probably looking as black ink if you could get enough of it and fine enough that it could pass through most filters. Patience and decanting could rid you of most of the copper. Then put everything metallic left into solution with aqua regia... or just adding HCl, the remaining nitrates will be enough to dissolve the little gold that is left.
Filter out any sand, then precipitate the gold from the solution.

If HCl is the only acid I could get then I would start with boiling the incinerated material in HCl and wash it off. This will remove some contamination from the incinerated soil and dirt. Then HCl + time or a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide to start a copper chloride leach. With or without a bubbler the copper chloride and acid will turn all the copper into copper chloride, leaving the same black gold dirt with the sand. After the copper is dissolved, decanting and washing with HCl will remove the dissolved copper. Then HCl + hydrogen peroxide or chlorine (bleach) will dissolve the gold.
Filter out any sand, then precipitate the gold from the solution.

Any liquids pored off should be tested for gold with stannous of course.

Well, this is the general way I would tackle this problem if I really wanted to chase a couple of dollars worth of gold just for the challenge. And as always, there are more details in each step that I didn't mentioned, but this post is long enough as it is.

Göran
 
????????????????
 

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g_axelsson said:
I've thrown more gold than that in the trash. Isn't it so, Nick? :lol:

Göran

:lol: :lol: :lol: yes you did :!: :shock: :( :twisted:

I was the one out in the lab when you did that (& the one that helped you pick it all out of the trash) Nick & Jon were in the house cleaning up after dinner

But then again - just to set the record straight - the gold was NOT supposed to be in what you threw in the trash - it wasn't until we discovered the gold wasn't where it was supposed to be that we figured out the only other place it could be is what you threw in the trash

But then again we were working with some VERY unusual circumstances - or dare I say "mistakes" :twisted: :lol:

The first of which was WAY overdosing the cyanide with "concentrated" H2O2 - which then needed to be overcome to even think of getting the dissolved gold back from solution :shock: :? :oops: :lol:

Talk about a mess --- but that just goes to show that even the most experienced refiners can & do make mistakes - then again - experience (& LOTS of it) was the only thing that fixed that mess & got the gold back (we all had to put are heads together to fix it)

That had/has to be "the" most chemical complex mess I have ever seen with some real - experienced - head scratching to fix the mess created by that mistake at the beginning of the process

Bottom line - that one week get together (with you - Jon - Nick - Deano & Pat) was WELL worth it in a meeting of refiners with many interesting things discussed & done :mrgreen:

Kurt
 
kurtak said:
Bottom line - that one week get together (with you - Jon - Nick - Deano & Pat) was WELL worth it in a meeting of refiners with many interesting things discussed & done :mrgreen:

Kurt

I totally agree and I wouldn't hesitate a moment to do it again. :D

Göran
 
And one more thing...do you have a guess on what that grayish black stuff is that settled to the bottom of the glass jar in the pics i sent ?????????
 
Goldmember123 said:
And one more thing...do you have a guess on what that grayish black stuff is that settled to the bottom of the glass jar in the pics i sent ?????????

Maybe if you could tell us more about what you did to it. It just looks like some grayish stuff in the bottom of a jar.

Göran
 
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