Question about gold plated pins

[Ag and Au]

I performed a hot HCL wash and two hot water rinses to 1 Kg of cleaned gold plated pins. These pins were then put into this beaker/basket/bubbler set up. I added approx 2 liters of "emerald green" AP, covered it with a watchglass and let it bubble away. I will keep meticulous notes and share my results in a few weeks. As always, I welcome your comments.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Stir them around from time to time. Even with the bubbler, the solution in the center of that pile will become stagnant very quickly.

Dave

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

A little hydrogen peroxide will help speed up the process.

 

[Ag and Au]

I inadvertently created the world's first all-copper, bocce ball.

After two weeks of submersion in a bubbling AP basket/beaker solution, my 1 Kg of gold plated pins "fused together". My thought is that the pins were too densely confined from the onset. Any input is always appreciated

 

[g_axelsson]

There are two ways a copper chloride leach can solidify.

1. The material isn't all made up of copper, any copper chloride cements out the copper and the other metal goes into solution. The mass usually turns into a copper coloured solid clump while the solution loses all the copper and usually change colour from green to whatever metals goes into solution. Tin and solder gives a colourless solution while iron usually turn into yellow to dark orange-red solution.

2. The solution is saturated and running out of HCl, This precipitate the Copper(I) chloride as a white solid and fuses the pins together. Add or substitute the liquid with fresh HCl to dissolve the white CuCl, add a air bubbler to turn CuCl + HCl into Cu2Cl and continue the leach.

To me it sounds like you probably had enough iron based pins in the mix to cement out any copper.

Göran

 

[Ag and Au]

Thank you for your erudite analysis.... I am leaning toward your option #2 (I am fairly certain that there is little-to-no iron basemetal inside). I will closely observe the copper chloride leach batch and send a few pictures in the near future.

 

[Ag and Au]

2. The solution is saturated and running out of HCl, This precipitate the Copper(I) chloride as a white solid and fuses the pins together. Add or substitute the liquid with fresh HCl to dissolve the white CuCl, add a air bubbler to turn CuCl + HCl into Cu2Cl and continue the leach.

That did the trick! A rookie mistake. Thank you Göran.