Hi,
Totally new forum member here. First post. I joined because I've inherited some pretty interesting scrap. See the images below. This is 8.5lbs of electrodes, that were used for precious metals electroplating at Jostens in the 70s and 80s, when my father was one of their master artisans. He always said these should contain a lot of gold. Maybe he said silver too, I honestly don't remember. I know they at least contain a lot of nickel.
Anyway, I want to finally find out, if practical. But I'm not a chemist or refiner. I briefly entertained breaking them up to fine powder in a ball mill I have (I do lapidary work), and then chemically processing them to at least get rid of the non-gold. But I talked to chemists about it and the answer I received was a resounding "You won't recover enough to be worth the time and materials. And also you will almost certainly die." So that seems like a no-go. But then I discovered this forum. Any advice? I'm happy to send people samples, or even the whole thing, if someone wants to process it and split the results.
Thanks!
Totally new forum member here. First post. I joined because I've inherited some pretty interesting scrap. See the images below. This is 8.5lbs of electrodes, that were used for precious metals electroplating at Jostens in the 70s and 80s, when my father was one of their master artisans. He always said these should contain a lot of gold. Maybe he said silver too, I honestly don't remember. I know they at least contain a lot of nickel.
Anyway, I want to finally find out, if practical. But I'm not a chemist or refiner. I briefly entertained breaking them up to fine powder in a ball mill I have (I do lapidary work), and then chemically processing them to at least get rid of the non-gold. But I talked to chemists about it and the answer I received was a resounding "You won't recover enough to be worth the time and materials. And also you will almost certainly die." So that seems like a no-go. But then I discovered this forum. Any advice? I'm happy to send people samples, or even the whole thing, if someone wants to process it and split the results.
Thanks!