# recover gold and silver from sand



## john_paok (Sep 19, 2012)

Hi all,

I try to recover gold and silver from sand. I upload pics from my material. I have melt the sand and it is 24.5 grams. First I done inquarting method I put 75grams of nitric acid. I have not see something in my material and I have try with aqua regia to recover some gold. I put 100grams of Hcl acid and 25grams of nitric acid. More I put SMB and one day later nothing. And the last, I put two copper pipe in hot place and the result is that, the first pipe was gone and the second you can see bellow. 
can I recover some silver? this is silver cristals on second copper pipe?
the copper pipes in my material was stay 2 days outside (not in home temperature)


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## john_paok (Sep 20, 2012)

May the title of this topic is not correct. I'd like to tell me someone if this material has silver. Also, how can I recover it?


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## 9kuuby9 (Sep 20, 2012)

Hello,

Can you provide us with more information?

It seems like you have copper oxide, silver crystals and copper nitrate on your copper pipe that your are cementing with.


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 20, 2012)

Did you test the AR solution with SnCl2?
Did you neutralize it?
If you precipitate with Cu, silver precipitates too.
I think SMB is much more selective.

Regards, Dave


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## john_paok (Sep 20, 2012)

I'll try this proccess from the begin. I'd like to refine silver and gold. I'm not sure how much gold and silver contain this material but I belive it has. So, first must I take the hematite and magnetite with strong magnets? then must I put nitric acid and distil water 1:1 ratio in 2.5 times more of material ? and then must I heat up about one hour on hot place ?

http://www.goldnscrap.com/index.php...uarting-method-part-1&catid=25:gold&Itemid=20


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## butcher (Sep 20, 2012)

I do not know if there is gold or silver in your material, an assay would tell you if it is worth going after, personally I would just pan the material for value’s and forget fooling with the black sands (too much trouble for too little value).

In the top picture all I can see are copper salts, in the lower picture the aqua regia solution with High volumes of nitric acid, is very green this can be from iron or copper, from this mix even if nitric was removed properly from solution, and there was possibly any value in solution (from the picture I doubt there is value in the solution. what did the stannous chloride test show? ), you most likely would not be able to precipitate gold with a chemical reagent (if by chance it had gold cement it with copper),

If you had values they are possibly left in the materials left from the acid treatments, as the metals like iron would dissolve into solution and push out any gold.

Aqua regia is a very poor choice for leaching ore, especially black sands which are mostly iron compounds very hard to break.


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 21, 2012)

Sorry, I can't really understand your first step, the inquartation method. Did you melt the sand???
I think, inquartation is a refining method for carat gold only, not for sand / ore.


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## galenrog (Sep 21, 2012)

My suggestion would be to smelt the PM bearing sands. If you then have a gold button at the bottom of your conical mold, use standard refining methods found in this forum. I would also suggest you look at the many prospecting and small scale mining websites for advice on concentrating and smelting gold bearing sands.

If you simply want to find out if there is gold and roughly how much gold, then a assay is a must. Not all sands that are heavy with magnetics are gold bearing, but nearly all gold bearing sands are heavy with magnetics.


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## john_paok (Sep 22, 2012)

step by step...

first, I have sand 50 grams and put 200 grams of hcl acid slow. After , I had put nitric acid 50 grams 2,5 grams each time. this process had duration about 12 hours. now I upload pics from my solution.

what can I do if some sand have not dissolve? and when must I filtering? or refresh my solution?
I see my solution has precipitate, normally it mustn't has?


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 22, 2012)

Very interesting, guys!
The colour of your solution is much better !
Test ever with SNCl2! Gold refining without testing with SnCl2 is like hunting without cartridge.


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## john_paok (Sep 22, 2012)

the duration which I needed to put nitric acid in solution it was 6 hours. So, after 12 hours, now I heat slow my solution and I upload the results on this pics bellow. 

But may it has small quantity black sand, what can I do to remove it? In the filtering must I'll take the solution or the precipitate?
I have not SNCl2 now. Can I put in my solution Sn or aluminium leafs?


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 22, 2012)

I think you should let it to settle for several days, than carefully pour of the solution and filter. Don't drop tin in to your solution! This way you will lose your gold, if there are any gold in you solution (if you add tin, gold will drop as colloidal gold, that you can not filtrate). 
You should get some SnCl2, believe us! If you have any tin, add it to concentrated HCl, boil it gentle and let to dissolve. Leadless solder (with a minimum of 95% Sn) works well.


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## john_paok (Sep 22, 2012)

bogarasjoe said:


> I think you should let it to settle for several days, than carefully pour of the solution and filter. Don't drop tin in to your solution! This way you will lose your gold, if there are any gold in you solution (if you add tin, gold will drop as colloidal gold, that you can not filtrate).
> You should get some SnCl2, believe us! If you have any tin, add it to concentrated HCl, boil it gentle and let to dissolve. Leadless solder (with a minimum of 95% Sn) works well.



thanks bogarasjoe,

Must I heat low this solution every day? if I check it with SnCl2 what can I'll see? only if it has a gold? and after filtering must I put HCl acid?


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 22, 2012)

I mentioned that if you drop a piece of tin in a few ml of HCl, and heat it dissolves faster. Or heat just to begin fizzing, and let it for several days. Filtere, and here is the SnCl2 solution. Drop the test solution on a filter paper.
Drop your AR solution. If there are any gold, paper will get purple or black.
Use ever fresh test solution (ever 3 weeks).


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## john_paok (Sep 22, 2012)

bogarasjoe said:


> I think you should let it to settle for several days, than carefully pour of the solution and filter. Don't drop tin in to your solution! This way you will lose your gold, if there are any gold in you solution (if you add tin, gold will drop as colloidal gold, that you can not filtrate).
> You should get some SnCl2, believe us! If you have any tin, add it to concentrated HCl, boil it gentle and let to dissolve. Leadless solder (with a minimum of 95% Sn) works well.



Sorry bogarasjoe,

Now I understand what you tell me and this is that I wonder, if I boil Hcl acid with tin. Can I put aluminium leafs instead of tin? because it's better material which I have regarding purity and how many grams? I have HCl acid about 37%. If I boil 100ml of 37% HCl acid how many grams of alluminium must I put in HCl acid?

ever 3 weeks???  how many days must I stay my material in AR??? :x


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## butcher (Sep 22, 2012)

Stannous chloride (tin chloride) a test for gold in solution, the stannous chloride testing solution is tin dissolved in an HCl solution, this chemical reagent makes a very sesitive test for gold in solution,

A drop of solution suspected to contain gold on a filter paper (Q-tip), or in a white spot plate, will turn a violet color when a drop of the stannous chloride is added if the solution contains gold).

other metals will not produce this reaction.

Too much oxidizer (nitric in aqua regia), or (chlorine in solution) will also keep this reaction from working, as the purple color comes from the stannous chloride reducing the gold in solution to metal colloids that do not settle but reflect light to give the violet color.

Too much SMB can produce a brown reaction (false positive).


Iron can give a yellow color to solution, that can look like the yellow solution we get from having gold in solution, if in doubt if the solution is gold or iron you can use the stannous test for gold and another test for iron.

Test for Iron II and Iron III Ions, In the identification tests for the Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions use ferrocyanide, (deep blue reaction).

Sodium or potassium or ammonium thiocyanate solution) to a solution containing iron(III) ions, you get a (blood red solution) if positive for iron.

Black sand is high in iron so I would tend to believe the yellow solution is iron until a test proved differently.


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 23, 2012)

Absolutely rigth, butcher! Very good tests for iron ions!
And why woluld you like to drop Al in to your vessel? Would you like to drop gold wit it? Use SMB! With aluminium, so much base metals would come with your gold (if present). 
Don't worry, it is just a few day for AR to dissolve the materials at room temperature. With heating it can speed up for several hours. 
But if you do something wrong, it can be several weeks, or several months / years, to get your first gold. It was 3 months for me, to get my first pure gold. It is not easy... But it was my nicest chemical experiment ever. 
Be ever safe, wear protection! 
Reagards, Dave


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## john_paok (Sep 23, 2012)

> Absolutely rigth, butcher! Very good tests for iron ions!



yes it has magnetite and iron maybe and hematite. 
I hope AR dissolve gold with those metals in my solution



> And why woluld you like to drop Al in to your vessel? Would you like to drop gold wit it? Use SMB! With aluminium, so much base metals would come with your gold (if present).



I had reed this article bellow,

http://webpages.charter.net/kwilliams00/bcftp/bcftp.htm
espassialy follow,

Aqua Regia
.
.
.
Aqua regia dissolves gold and all the platinum metals very rapidly (especially if hot). It will also dissolve damn near anything else in your sample. Silver, iron, magnesium, manganese, aluminum, etc. In fact it will attack any metal. 
*
If you dissolve gold in aqua regia and want to recover it you will find that you must remove the nitric acid by evaporating the solution with heat. This will produce lots of the red vapor. You must not let the solution go completely dry. Stop heating when you still have just a little liquid left. Now you must add more hydrochloric and repeat the procedure. Repeat this evaporation 3 times or until there are no more red fumes coming off. Now add hydrochloric so that you have enough liquid to work with. All the metals will be in solution as their chloride salts. If you dilute this solution with an equal volume of water you will probably get a white cloud of silver chloride which you can filter off. Now to recover you’re gold. Probably the easiest is to cement it down by adding pieces of zinc or aluminum. You will get a black-brown precipitate in the bottom that you can smelt back to nice yellow gold. There are numerous other ways to recover the gold but that’s another page.*

Tomorrow I buy SnCl2. It is faster than that if I was making 
and one question more... 
I'd like gold ions, how can I do that???? if I put gold leaf in equal amount nitric acid? or in AR?

Thank a lot all for your answer


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## butcher (Sep 23, 2012)

Yes the aqua regia will dissolve darn near all metals but that does not mean they will stay in solution, there is a bug in that theory, called the reactivity series of metals, it says a more reactive metal will replace a less active metal from solution.

This is the same principle or theory that zinc will cement gold from solution (zinc is much more reactive than gold in the reactivity series of metals) google reactivity series of metals to learn more.

Platinum does not go into solution easy, sometimes it seems it will take forever.

You will have gold ions when you have gold in solution.

Aluminum can form a gel in solution (keep it out).


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## bogarasjoe (Sep 24, 2012)

You will never dissolve platinum with AR at room temperature!
Yes, if you drop a piece of aluminium (and there is gold in your solution), gold will drop. But there are so much other base metals in your solution. If you drop Al in to it, it will reduce your gold and some of the base metals (Cu, Ag, Ni etc.) too. So your gold will be contaminated with other metals. Google reactivity series and standard potentials!
Regards, Dave


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## john_paok (Sep 24, 2012)

I have test my solution with SnCl2 2H2O I upload the results 
I hope have some in my solution.

test which I bought today is Tin as crystals SnCl2 2H2O. I hope bought the right test ! :roll:


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## john_paok (Sep 24, 2012)

I made stenous cloride SnCl2 amd I upload the result.
when I shake it become dark....and then go on.
What happen?


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## Geo (Sep 24, 2012)

a disappearing test could mean you have free nitric in solution. an overabundance of oxidizer will cause the the test solution to make a quick stain which fades in a few moments. i have seen the effect where the positive was a quick flash and then gone.


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## john_paok (Sep 24, 2012)

Geo said:


> a disappearing test could mean you have free nitric in solution. an overabundance of oxidizer will cause the the test solution to make a quick stain which fades in a few moments. i have seen the effect where the positive was a quick flash and then gone.



oufff.... thanks Geo,

When I put nitric acid in my solution I had seen in 20-25 ml of nitric acid the reaction stop (bubbling and fizzing) in my material. So, must I neutralization of AR solution?

http://goldnscrap.com/index.php?opt...rial&catid=40:platinum-group-metals&Itemid=52

and what can I do to remove the trace-the stickies- which is the base of the cup? must I filtering? 
My solution has 3 stage, on the bottom it has black sand as stickies. Must I remove it?


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## Geo (Sep 24, 2012)

if you had followed the instruction to the letter, i doubt you would be having so much trouble. Sam does a very good job of explaining what to do. once the gold bearing material has been dissolved, then it should be filtered to remove all solids. so, yes, if there is PM's in your solution, you should filter all solids from the solution. is there any metal left over from the dissolution at all? any metal left will have PM's cemented on it and will need to be fully dissolved.

my recommendation to you is, filter the solution you have. add to the solution a heavy piece of copper (a buss bar, copper pipe beaten flat). leave the copper in the solution for at least two days. remove what is left of the copper and rinse any powder from the copper with a spray bottle back into the solution. allow any powder that cemented to settle and siphon off the spent solution as close to the powder without sucking up any powder. rinse with tap water and let the powder settle again. siphon the rinse water down to the powder. repeat the rinse until the water stays clear. on the last rinse, add enough hcl to cover the powder well and then add household bleach in small increments until all the powder is dissolved. allow the solution to sit out overnight so the excess chlorine can evaporate off. filter the solution even if it looks clear. precipitate with your choice of precipitant.


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## john_paok (Sep 25, 2012)

Geo said:


> if you had followed the instruction to the letter, i doubt you would be having so much trouble. Sam does a very good job of explaining what to do. once the gold bearing material has been dissolved, then it should be filtered to remove all solids. so, yes, if there is PM's in your solution, you should filter all solids from the solution. is there any metal left over from the dissolution at all? any metal left will have PM's cemented on it and will need to be fully dissolved.
> 
> my recommendation to you is, filter the solution you have. add to the solution a heavy piece of copper (a buss bar, copper pipe beaten flat). leave the copper in the solution for at least two days. remove what is left of the copper and rinse any powder from the copper with a spray bottle back into the solution. allow any powder that cemented to settle and siphon off the spent solution as close to the powder without sucking up any powder. rinse with tap water and let the powder settle again. siphon the rinse water down to the powder. repeat the rinse until the water stays clear. on the last rinse, add enough hcl to cover the powder well and then add household bleach in small increments until all the powder is dissolved. allow the solution to sit out overnight so the excess chlorine can evaporate off. filter the solution even if it looks clear. precipitate with your choice of precipitant.



Yes I try to make your recommendation and thank,
So, I upload the pics.

I put half meter of copper wire 1,5 mm2 diameter and dissolve over a few hours and put another half meter of copper wire 1,5 mm2 diametre and dissolves it as well. I want to get silver and gold. First must I get the silver and then the gold? how can I do that? 

I have thick bleach - clorine . half of her glass dissolved in 5 liters of water. Also, I found kezap - hydrochloric acid do not know what ratio has. is for domestic use. Which one to choose;

And the last one, I upload the pic of no reacted material. This may contain glass? It can't react with nitric acid. I hope the no reacted material has not silver. But it looks like as silver.


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## Geo (Sep 25, 2012)

the fact that it has dissolved so much copper means that it had A LOT of free nitric. if you have enough room in the reaction vessel, add half the volume of your solution in water to the solution. keep dissolving copper until no more copper will dissolve. any gold or silver in solution will be cemented out as a black powder. normally, gold and silver will not stay in the same solution.there are a couple of exceptions. silver will stay in solution with gold in warm AR. as the solution cools, the silver will precipitate out on its own as silver chloride. some will stay in solution at room temperature, if you chill the solution,more silver chloride will precipitate.also, when you dilute the solution with water, silver chloride will precipitate out of solution. these are things you really need to know before you attempt this process again.


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## john_paok (Sep 26, 2012)

I put 5 ice cube and little distill water and the water is approximately half volume of my solution. and in minutes I see some...solids :!: :?: powder you see in pic... 
Please tell me if you want, what is on the filter and in my chemical vessel?

I hope something good....


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## Geo (Sep 26, 2012)

it may be the picture quality, but the precipitate looks very yellow. take a small sample and place it in a small glass container. add to this a small amount of ammonium hydroxide and observe. dis any of the precipitate dissolve? leave the ammonium hydroxide on the sample for an hour and then remove the solution to another glass container. add a small amount of hcl and observe. did the solution turn cloudy? if yes, the precipitate that came from your first solution is silver chloride. if no, its copper chloride.


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## john_paok (Sep 27, 2012)

Geo said:


> it may be the picture quality, but the precipitate looks very yellow. take a small sample and place it in a small glass container. add to this a small amount of ammonium hydroxide and observe. dis any of the precipitate dissolve? leave the ammonium hydroxide on the sample for an hour and then remove the solution to another glass container. add a small amount of hcl and observe. did the solution turn cloudy? if yes, the precipitate that came from your first solution is silver chloride. if no, its copper chloride.



Geo,
Please look the pic with filter after filtering and dry. 

It's Brown, so can I rince with water and then with Hcl acid and Clorine?


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## butcher (Sep 27, 2012)

This could be iron, Hokes book (page 100) has test for iron in solution, She discribes using potassium thiocyanate (blood red for iron), and potassium ferro-cyanide (prussian blue for iron).

possibly Fe3O4 magnetite , but can also be Fe2O3 hemitite. 
There can be other metals in the filter, roasting these, and putting a sample in solution and test with stannous chloride (for values), and the tests for iron in solution.

Keep in mind when dealing with ore Iron in solution can look like gold in solution, using the tests can keep you from being fooled. iron in ore can fool us too as pyrite fools gold, simple test can let us know the difference.


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## john_paok (Sep 28, 2012)

butcher said:


> This could be iron, Hokes book (page 100) has test for iron in solution, She discribes using potassium thiocyanate (blood red for iron), and potassium ferro-cyanide (prussian blue for iron).
> 
> possibly Fe3O4 magnetite , but can also be Fe2O3 hemitite.
> There can be other metals in the filter, roasting these, and putting a sample in solution and test with stannous chloride (for values), and the tests for iron in solution.
> ...



I test for gold but nothing. my process is not good.

why may it's iron? I put copper so must I have as solids only silver , copper, mercury and platinum.

I think the best choice is to do AR to disolve all metals and it seperate from black sand and then to recover silver and gold but if I put copper in AR I'll take all metals as solid copper on the table (silver,gold....) is it correct? :?: 

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/1053/1078773/tools/bl04tb04.html

in the inquarting methode if I put nitric acid with dist. water after filtering in solution I'll have silver nitrate? silver in the nitric acid?


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## butcher (Sep 29, 2012)

You easily can have iron and copper dissolved in solution at the same time, in fact an iron chloride solution will dissolve copper and is used to etch to dissolve portion of copper to make the traces on circuit boards.

You can also precipitate copper from an iron solution by adding the elemental iron metal.

If you had a strong solution able to dissolve metals and the solution was an iron solution and you put copper metal into this solution, you could dissolve the copper into the iron solution, the iron would not cement from the solution, note iron is higher in the reactivity series of metals.

If I had a copper and iron solution and I put a bar of metal iron in solution I could cement out the copper.

Aqua regia would be a poor choice for a leach with black sands (too much iron.

Grinding to powder and roasting the sulfide and iron oxides would also be important before leaching.

Cyanide or some other selective leach would work better as this way you are not dissolving base metals contaminating the leach, or wasting tons of acids to get a few tiny flakes of gold, other than that concentrating and smelting is what I feel would work best.


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## john_paok (Sep 30, 2012)

butcher said:


> You easily can have iron and copper dissolved in solution at the same time, in fact an iron chloride solution will dissolve copper and is used to etch to dissolve portion of copper to make the traces on circuit boards.
> 
> You can also precipitate copper from an iron solution by adding the elemental iron metal.
> 
> ...



Thank and I do that,

Adding nitric acid I see the reacted black sand with nitric acid is about 20% and I try to another solution. I upload the pic, I hope is better before... 8) 
When I heat my solution is reacted, fizzing and bubbling, what must I do? can I heat low more time?

now if I filter the solution may I have all the metals in solution but how can I take only the gold? with SMB?

must I take first the silver? But if I try to refine the silver I'll loose the gold. Because I put copper...must Imake agine AR to disolve gold and adding SMB? to precipitate the gold?


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## butcher (Sep 30, 2012)

If there is any gold in solution it would cement out using a copper buss bar (clean thick bar of copper metal). if there is a lot of nitric it will not stop it from working but will dissolve more copper into solution, as a soluble copper nitrate.


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## john_paok (Oct 2, 2012)

butcher said:


> If there is any gold in solution it would cement out using a copper buss bar (clean thick bar of copper metal). if there is a lot of nitric it will not stop it from working but will dissolve more copper into solution, as a soluble copper nitrate.



and then must I make AR to dissolve the cement? Why first must I take silver and then gold?


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## butcher (Oct 3, 2012)

I must admit I am getting confused where you are at with this solution, is it a nitric solution? Or chloride solutions like HCL or aqua regia?
I am not sure what’s going on here or what the solution is now, I am getting lost. Did your test for gold in solution show positive? Is there gold in solution? 

Gold does not dissolve in nitric acid but silver will.
Silver does not dissolve in a chloride solution like aqua regia but gold will.

If you used a clean large piece of copper metal in a silver nitrate solution (dirty with base metals),
The silver would cement leaving most base metals in solution.


If you used a clean large piece of copper metal, in a solution of gold chloride (dirty aqua regia with other base metals) the gold would cement from solution leaving most of the base metals in solution.

I would rinse the gold powder well in water and a boil in HCl acid and rinse with water again, then you could then dissolve the cemented values gold, in aqua regia or by using one of the other methods to dissolve gold powder like HCl and bleach.

You probably will not have much silver in the cemented powders if this is a chloride solution, because silver in HCl or aqua regia forms an insoluble silver chloride (AgCl), only a very small amount will go into solution with the concentrated aqua regia at a higher oxidation state only slightly soluble in the concentrated chloride solution as (AgCl2), this normally precipitates as a white silver chloride (AgCl) powder when the aqua regia is diluted, and letting it settle decant and filtering separates this tiny bit of silver from the gold.

Basically you will not have silver and gold in the same solutions.

I am not sure what you’re asking when you said, "Why first must I take silver and then gold?"
Maybe try asking the question a different way.

I am still not sure what’s going on here; did your test for gold in solution show positive? is there gold in solution?


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## john_paok (Oct 3, 2012)

butcher said:


> I must admit I am getting confused where you are at with this solution, is it a nitric solution? Or chloride solutions like HCL or aqua regia?
> I am not sure what’s going on here or what the solution is now, I am getting lost. Did your test for gold in solution show positive? Is there gold in solution?



In the last post photos is solution is the third assay of black sand dissolving by AR. in this solution on the last photos I take a powder after filtering and puting copper wire.

Now, I upload the photo of fourth assay which is black sand dissolving by AR and take powder with SMB and then I rinse-boil the powder in dist. water 2 times and a boil in HCl acid 1 time and rinse-boil with dist. water again. The test in AR for gold by SnCl2 is positive.



butcher said:


> Gold does not dissolve in nitric acid but silver will.
> Silver does not dissolve in a chloride solution like aqua regia but gold will.
> 
> If you used a clean large piece of copper metal in a silver nitrate solution (dirty with base metals),
> ...



I'll try to follow this steps on fifth assay,

1 Dissolve black sand by AR.
2 Put copper wire to cementing all metals of solution.
3 Filtering and rinse the powder 3 times by dist. water 1 time boil by Hcl acid and 1 time boil by dist. water
4 Dissolve powder by AR.
5 Cement gold powder by SMB.
6 Filtering and rinse the powder 3 times by dist. water 1 time boil by Hcl acid and 1 time boil by dist. water (repeat step 3  )
7 melt gold


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