Extracting gold using borax? Can someone explain?

[richard2013]

I would say the extraction is panning but turning the impure gold powder into a button was using a borax, in the video it shows using a cheap clay dish same material used in garden clay pot, its very cheap here in our PH area. Around $.50Cent to $ 1 dollar price with very strong supply than a 3inches ceramic dish here will cause us $16 to 20$. :shock: If they will not use borax they will have problems with gold sticking to that clay dish. This could just be word misrepresentation, we can even see in the video the borax was used as to cover the dish after clay dish seasoning.

We can see they are just practical and leave the refining stage to the gold buyers, after all gold buyers will just payed 80% to 90% spot price regardless of its a 99.9% Au button. :mrgreen:

 

[Geo]

Smelting is an ancient form of gold recovery and refining. It will not get the gold pure. The pictures prove the gold is impure. There is nothing new about it. Cupellation is another ancient form of refining that will actually produce a more refined product. This also is not new. Just because it has fell by the wayside, when someone comes across it, it seems like it is a new way of doing things. There is seldom any new refining technique discovered that has any practical use and normally it's just a new twist to an old process. Borax will absorb some oxides and lock them in the slag but unless the metal being melted is already basically pure to begin with, it's not much of a difference. As mentioned, it is used as a lubricant so the tiny prills of metal can come together to form larger pieces.

 

[M.Veiga]

There is no Borax Methd. Borax can be used to melt high grade concentrates and this has been used for centuries in developed and developing countries. The problem is that if you do not have very high grade of gold in the concentrate of material you want to melt, large part of the gold will be carried to the slag. The process called "Borax Method" is a classic method already used by all artisanal miners worldwide...nothing new. Useful for alluvial concentrates (yellow) but not useful for most other types of gold ores, as the more you concentrate the gold, the more you lose...this is a basic l;;aw in mineral processing.

 

[Southfork]

There is no Borax Methd. Borax can be used to melt high grade concentrates and this has been used for centuries in developed and developing countries. The problem is that if you do not have very high grade of gold in the concentrate of material you want to melt, large part of the gold will be carried to the slag. The process called "Borax Method" is a classic method already used by all artisanal miners worldwide...nothing new. Useful for alluvial concentrates (yellow) but not useful for most other types of gold ores, as the more you concentrate the gold, the more you lose...this is a basic l;;aw in mineral processing.

I find the more I concentrate the gold the more I recover.

 

[Yggdrasil]

There is no Borax Methd. Borax can be used to melt high grade concentrates and this has been used for centuries in developed and developing countries. The problem is that if you do not have very high grade of gold in the concentrate of material you want to melt, large part of the gold will be carried to the slag. The process called "Borax Method" is a classic method already used by all artisanal miners worldwide...nothing new. Useful for alluvial concentrates (yellow) but not useful for most other types of gold ores, as the more you concentrate the gold, the more you lose...this is a basic l;;aw in mineral processing.

Welcome to us.
I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say here.
Borax is just one of the components used when smelting ores.

Here is something to study for your own safety and those around you.
We ask our new members to do 3 things.
1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: Screen Readable Copy of Hoke's Book
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: Safety
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: Dealing with Waste

Suggested reading: The Library

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/

 

[Heavy-Black-Sand]

the more you concentrate the gold, the more you lose...this is a basic law in mineral processing.

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say here.

I think what he was trying to say is .......

* when your out in the field with a sluice or jig, etc ... your initial concentration ratio might be aprox. 100-to-1 ..... your initial concentration ratio depends on many factors.

* when you bring the concentrates into the shop or clean up facility, you further concentrate them down to say aprox. 30,000-to-1 (or higher) to prep for smelting charge.

* during the process of super-concentrating mining ore via gravity device from 100-to-1 to 30,000-to-1; people can (and many do) lose a large percentage of their super fine gold into the tailings bucket of their super concentrating device.

* so, many end up losing alot of their super fine Gold during the gravity driven super-concentrating process into tailings - prior to them being able to add it into the final charge for the Borax smelting process.

 

[HermantPumphandle]

Yeah, that was my point. Usually they would add mercury to the trammel, pour off the waste and retain the mercury amalgam. Then the mercury amalgam is strained through cloth until most of the mercury has been squeezed out, then you are left with a ball of mercury/precious metal amalgam. Then the excess mercury is burned off, I think the ratio of precious metal to mercury is something like 1/5. Then the mercury is burned off when the gold is melted. The borax was only used after the gold had been extracted. At best the borax was used to refine impurities, not extracting the gold.

Also, I think a very simple wet scrubber will allow the reclamation of incinerated mercury, right?

If I'm wrong about any of this, someone please correct me. It just bothers me that the video claims that borax is used to extract gold, when in fact that just simply isn't the case. Seems like it's just propagating a misconception.

They don't want US refining gold
I watched my dad combine 10 14 & 18kt with a torch in a small crucible, torch it sprinkled it with borax and Wala all 24kt.

 

[Yggdrasil]

They don't want US refining gold
I watched my dad combine 10 14 & 18kt with a torch in a small crucible, torch it sprinkled it with borax and Wala all 24kt.

Welcome to us.
The process you describe is impossible.
You can't get it purer than the purest Gold you add.
Unless you add high amount of correct fluxes and then sparge it with Oxygen.
We are then talking about smelting not melting.

How was the purity measured?

 

[rickbb]

Zombie thread, IP from 2012

 

[manorman]

Soap keeps the fine gold from floating on the surface tension of the water, in the video they used hand soap, I use a few drops of dish soap.

Works like jet dry dies, it breaks the surface tension.