# Precipitating gold out of Aqua Regia



## samuel-a

Hi guys, just uploaded a short video of the SMB dropping process

have fun, hope it will help someone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbGpchJ_oU


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## chemist

Nice video. How many grams was that drop?


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## glorycloud

I don't know why that is always so much fun for me to do.
Yellow -> clear -> yoo-hoo!! :lol:


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## samuel-a

chemist said:


> Nice video. How many grams was that drop?



a little less then a dwt.


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## patnor1011

Sam that is my favourite part of magic lol...
Just two things. Do wear gloves please you scared s*it out of me lol. I am extremely cautionous after small drops of AP hit my face and my eyes. I rinsed my left eye and face about 4-5 seconds after that happened but did not rinse my right eye as i tought nothing went there. After about 5 minutes of rinsing i noticed few small drops on my glasses and rinse my right eye too. It was too late though. I did not experience any loss of vision or something like that but i feel sort of blunt pain in eye for about 2 days + headache. It was not that painfull but more of uncomfortable feeling. After that i did not handle even my rinsed clean buckets without gloves and rest of safety equipment. Accidents happened when you least expected them.

Secondly I want to ask what sort of chips from motherboards did you processed. Flatpacks or black plastics IC chips?
Pat


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## samuel-a

hi pat
those are flatpacks.

i allways wear protective goggles, also on that video.
you are corrcet about the gloves, protective gear should be used all the time.


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## Anonymous

hello, i saw your video too , but when i put the Aqua regia on the processors it becames black or dark green . Is not good my aqua regia ? how much nitric acid should i put on hydrochloric acid ? 1 part of nitric acid at 3 parts of hydrochloric acid ? to turn it yellow like yours when i put it on the microprocessors ? After this, Instead of SMB can i use salt (NaCl) ? Thanks in advance for the answers. Cheers


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## philddreamer

Hi Gold.Lunatic!
Check the post @ GENERAL CHAT: "General Reaction List", you'll find the recipies for the different methods. Also check in HELP NEEDED, there you'll find answers to questions similar to yours.

Salt will drop silver, but not gold. SMB, sodiuom metabisulfite, will drop gold from your solution, provided there's any gold present. It is recommended to always do a stannous test to make sure gold is present.

Continue reading the posts so you become better informed & minimize running into trouble or even getting hurt. 

Take care! 8) 

Phil


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## Anonymous

> Do wear gloves please you scared s*it out of me lol. I am extremely cautionous after small drops of AP hit my face and my eyes.


I have never seen gloves that protect your eyes.lol
I have a few questions and comments.
First,the title of the thread indicates that this is AR yet that looks like,and acts like AC(HCl/NaOCl).
Next,what did you use for a leach,how long did you leach,and finally how did you precipitate?
And finally I noticed that you did not "crush" your material,you may be able to further leach this material if you ground it to a fine powder.


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## goldenchild

Gold.Lunatic said:


> hello, i saw your video too , but when i put the Aqua regia on the processors it becames black or dark green . Is not good my aqua regia ? how much nitric acid should i put on hydrochloric acid ? 1 part of nitric acid at 3 parts of hydrochloric acid ? to turn it yellow like yours when i put it on the microprocessors ? After this, Instead of SMB can i use salt (NaCl) ? Thanks in advance for the answers. Cheers




Your AR ratio sounds ok but you will not get the nice clear yellow HAuCl4 like in the video. Im guessing samuel has twice refined his gold to get it that clean and clear. By your questions however its very apparent that you have alot of reading to do. Please read Hoke's book available for download here http://tinyurl.com/mfnyhs


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## patnor1011

mic said:


> Do wear gloves please you scared s*it out of me lol. I am extremely cautionous after small drops of AP hit my face and my eyes.
> 
> 
> 
> I have never seen gloves that protect your eyes.lol.
Click to expand...


Read and think before commenting. I know that dot at end of sentence is small and easily overlooked...It is not one sentence but two.
One is asking to wear gloves as it was clearly seen that he did not had any on at that video. That is all to that sentence.
Second sentence refers to usefulness of safety equipment. One old wise man told me three times measure - one time cut. :mrgreen:


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## g_axelsson

Gold.Lunatic said:


> hello, i saw your video too , but when i put the Aqua regia on the processors it becames black or dark green . Is not good my aqua regia ? how much nitric acid should i put on hydrochloric acid ? 1 part of nitric acid at 3 parts of hydrochloric acid ? to turn it yellow like yours when i put it on the microprocessors ? After this, Instead of SMB can i use salt (NaCl) ? Thanks in advance for the answers. Cheers



To get the golden color you have to dissolve almost pure gold. Copper and other base metals from the processors will add color to your solution.

AR will only dissolve some silver chloride if it is concentrated. If you have concentrated AR and adds SMB dissolved in water then it will drop both metal gold and silver chloride. To avoid that just add some water before filtering and the SMB. If an addition of water creates a white cloud then you had silver chloride in solution but now it should end up in the filter.
To make things even better add a few drops of sulphuric acid before filtering, it will precipitate the lead chloride.

CPU:s in AR is what we call a dirty solution. It is a way to recover gold, to concentrate it before refining. To get good purity you should rerefine the gold powder you get from the first drop. It will contain lead, copper, nickel, etc. that was trapped by drag down. This time you should have that golden colored liquid before the drop.

/Göran


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## g_axelsson

philddreamer said:


> Hi Gold.Lunatic!
> Check the post @ GENERAL CHAT: "General Reaction List", you'll find the recipies for the different methods. Also check in HELP NEEDED, there you'll find answers to questions similar to yours.
> 
> Salt will drop silver, but not gold. SMB, sodium metabisulfite, will drop gold from your solution, provided there's any gold present. It is recommended to always do a stannous test to make sure gold is present.
> 
> Continue reading the posts so you become better informed & minimize running into trouble or even getting hurt.
> 
> Take care! 8)
> 
> Phil



Just a small detail... Adding salt to AR won't drop any silver, there is already enough chloride ions in the AR to drop the silver in the first place. At worst you need to dilute the AR with a bit of water to get the silver to drop.

:lol:

Other than that I agree totally with you.

/Göran


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## Anonymous

> Read and think before commenting.


You should heed you own advice.I know that period is hard to pass up.
Had you paid attention also,you wouldve seen that I added "lol" after that comment.Leave your attitude at the door,it was only a joke that you took out of context.
EDITTED
Harold has stated before how difficult it is to know exactly how someone meant something when they write it on here.The comment about the gloves,was made in a joking manner,hence the "lol" at the end.Obviously I knew what you meant,but the way you wrote it sounded funny to me.No harm intended.Sorry.


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## Harold_V

mic said:


> Read and think before commenting.
> 
> 
> 
> You should heed you own advice.I know that period is hard to pass up.
> Had you paid attention also,you wouldve seen that I added "lol" after that comment.Leave your attitude at the door,it was only a joke that you took out of context.
> EDITTED
> Harold has stated before how difficult it is to know exactly how someone meant something when they write it on here.The comment about the gloves,was made in a joking manner,hence the "lol" at the end.Obviously I knew what you meant,but the way you wrote it sounded funny to me.No harm intended.Sorry.
Click to expand...

None of this is acceptable. 
It's a safe idea to not try to get a laugh at the expense of another, especially considering this is an international forum, with readers from all corners of the globe. Some of them have less than good command of the English language (although far better command than that I have of their native tongue), so some of the "clever" things one may say, all in good fun, may not be interpreted as such, and give cause to retaliate with yet more unkind words. That's one thing we work hard to avoid, here. 

Keep in mind, at all times, when posting on this forum. We try to present an air of *professionalism*. Please try to limit your comments to the topic at hand, and not say anything that can be interpreted as being critical of the other guy. It is especially important that we not be critical of the command others may have of our language. 

Harold


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## Anonymous

> Some of them have less than good command of the English language





> so some of the "clever" things one may say, all in good fun, may not be interpreted as such,





> Keep in mind, at all times, when posting on this forum.


Understood.I will try to take more time,and care, when posting in the future.
Obviously you see it was meant with no harm,but to patnor I am sorry sir.


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## philddreamer

Hi Goran!

After reading Gold.Lunatic's post, I understood he was in need of more information, so, I just stated that: salt will drop silver, but not gold. 
In the following sentence that I wrote, I pointed out to him that SMB will drop gold from his solution. 

I also recommended: "Continue reading the posts so you become better informed & minimize running into trouble or even getting hurt."
Goldenchild also gave the same advice to Gold.Lunatic: "By your questions however its very apparent that you have alot of reading to do. Please read Hoke's book available for download here http://tinyurl.com/mfnyhs"

Sorry if I caused any confusion. :lol: 

Phil


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## samuel-a

mic said:


> I have a few questions and comments.
> First,the title of the thread indicates that this is AR yet that looks like,and acts like AC(HCl/NaOCl).
> Next,what did you use for a leach,how long did you leach,and finally how did you precipitate?
> And finally I noticed that you did not "crush" your material,you may be able to further leach this material if you ground it to a fine powder.




Hi mic
- this was an AR solution, i have no reason to say otherwise...
what do you mean "act like" ? AuCl3 and HAuCl4 are basiclly the same, from a refining point of view.
- I'v leached the chips with AR, boiling for 1 hour.
dropped with SMB , washed and redissolved with AR and dropped again, and this second drop is what's on the video. (like mario mentioned)
- i'm awar of that, i'm still perfecting my ball mill.


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## Anonymous

Thanks for the answers.What I meant by "it doesn't look like it",was,usually when you leach with AR,the resulant solution is very discolored due to the base metals in solution.
I did not mean to say "it doesn't act like it".I do not use smb so I can not speculate on that.Great video,I love making video's like this.I have some form years ago that I still watch today,like you guys said,it never gets tiring.


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## mhmmd1375

Hello . What is the best way to precipitate gold from aqua regia when palladium is also soluble in aqua regia?


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## Owltech

mhmmd1375 said:


> Hello . What is the best way to precipitate gold from aqua regia when palladium is also soluble in aqua regia?



Oxalic acid, sodium nitrite to name a few


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## goldsilverpro

In my experience, Ferrous sulfate, Copperas, is about the best to avoid much co-precipitation of PGMs. Follow the very complete instructions in the Hoke book.


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## g_axelsson

Some links for copperas... at the bottom of the page.
http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Copperas

Göran


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