# Why are Ishor's chemicals so expensive?



## Paige (May 22, 2007)

Does anyone have a list as to what they are?

Paige


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## lazersteve (May 22, 2007)

Storm Percipitant = Sodium Meta Bisulfite = SMB = Na2S2O5

Sub Zero = Sodium Nitrate = NaNo3


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## Paige (May 22, 2007)

Thank you for the info. Not that I'll invest in one of their systems. It sounds good, anyway.

Paige


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## AuMINIMayhem (May 22, 2007)

Subject: Why are iShore's products so expensive?

Answer: because it's "captalism", baby! 

other than that, no real good reason that I can see..


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## Paige (May 22, 2007)

But along with gold ole capitalism is knowledge. Thanks to Lazersteve, we now know what to buy at a reasonable price and have the same product.

We now just need to klnow what GC salt is and what their "catalyst" is.

I had the fellow who assayed some gold say that their claim of .9999 was ambitious, after 2 runs.

For environmental reasons, it would be nice not to have all of this AR to dispose of. Their salt idea with electricity is a good one. I guess the idea has been around a long time. 

Paige


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## Destroyer (Jun 5, 2007)

I bought it to give it a try, I find the instructions to be vague at times. 

The acid used in this process is muriatic (also known as hydrochloric) acid. This acid is corrosive (see warning label on your bottle). For this reason, this kind of refining is best done outdoors, away from anything that may be damaged by exposure to these fumes. Should say use a half mask.

Having described it's hazards, it must be pointed out that, like most industrial processes, refining gold in acid is quite safe when performed under controlled conditions. In addition, the results of doing your own refining can be quite sweet. Based upon feedback we've gotten from several hundred users, we estimate that the return of gold, when you refine the material yourself, is 10 times the return when sent in to a commercial refining company.

To refine gold with the SubZero Aqua Regia , you will need the following additional items:

· protective clothing--minimum requirement: goggles and rubber gloves 

· muriatic or hydrochloric acid 

· baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to neutralize the acid when finished 

· tap water and distilled water 

· containers for the boards 

Should say use a half face mask.


Make your aqua regia solution: 

In a glass or plastic container, add 1 lb SubZero to ½ gallon of muriatic or hydrochloric acid. Do not use a metal container. 

Before refining: 

Cut off those portions of the board that have gold. Discard the rest. Chips, which have gold inside as well as outside, must be broken open. On a small scale, one tap with a hammer should suffice. With lots of chips, you might want to use a cement mixer. 

Dissolving the gold: 

The acid should be at room temperature. Place your boards into 2 identical glass or plastic container. Square or rectangular plastic tanks are generally the most practical for boards.

Cover your boards with the aqua regia solution that you made. The metal will begin to fizz and give off an invisible or slightly brown fume. You can cover the container, but do not seal it tightly because you don't want a built up of gas pressure. You can speed up the process by heating your solution, but this creates added hazard- hot acid fumes more rapidly and is more corrosive. Additionally, make sure that the Pyrex container in which you are heating the acid is designed for the stovetop, not the oven. 

When the fizzing stops, then all the metal should be dissolved. At room temperature, dissolving time is usually between ½ hour and 2 hours. Check the boards to make sure all the gold has been removed and dissolved into the aqua regia acid. 

Taking great care not to spill any solution, pour the acid into the other glass or plastic container. The aqua regia is not used up yet, so you can use the same acid to dissolve the gold off the second set of boards. You can continue to use this acid to, several times, to dissolve the metal off additional boards until it is no longer effective.

After the acid has been pour from the first container into the second, it is time to remove the boards. Remove the boards, one by one. If there is are any brown particles clinging to the boards, rinse them off into a plastic bucket or other similar container. These brown particles may be gold that has prematurely precipitated during the dissolving process. This is a result of the iron and steel in the boards. You can recover these particles later and put them in a future refining. 

Adjusting the pH & Precipitating the pure gold: 

When the aqua regia is no longer effective (no long dissolves the gold on the boards), it is time to recover the pure gold from the solution.

The acid will be a dark, emerald green color and should be clear (not murky or cloudy). If the acid is murky, it may contain particles and should be decanted again or filtered.

Add a pinch of urea to the acid. If it fizzes, add additional urea until it no longer fizzes. When there is no longer any fizzing, add 1½ tablespoons of Storm Precipitant for every ounce of dissolved metal (dissolved metal content, not just dissolved gold content). Immediately, the acid will change to a muddy brown appearance as brown particles of gold form in the acid. This brown "mud" is, despite its appearance, pure gold. If you want to speed the precipitation process, you can add the precipitant to very hot water before adding to the acid. This technique will precipitate the gold in only about 5 minutes (30-120 minutes is normal when not using this technique), but be aware that hot precipitant has a very strong, pungent odor.

Once precipitation is complete, test the acid for the presence of dissolved gold with Precious Metal Detection Liquid. You will do this alot as I have put three or four pounds of the Storm mix into the AR and guess what it tests as Gold bearing as it see Gold in Parts per billion this step is madding
Testing to make sure no dissolved gold is discarded: 

Precious metal detection liquid will detect the presence of dissolved gold down to 4 parts of gold per million parts of acid )detecting the presence of about 1/1,000th of 1 gram of dissolved gold. Testing for the presence of dissolved gold is absolutely necessary to insure that no dissolved gold is thrown away with the waste acid. 

To test, first immerse the end of the stirring rod in the acid. Remove it and touch that end to a paper towel to make a wet spot. Put a drop of gold detection liquid on the wet spot on the paper towel. If any gold is still dissolved in the acid, the wet spot will turn a purple-black or a purple-brown. If you see this color change then give the precipitant more time to work and/or add more precipitant.

Rinsing the pure gold: 

The acid should now be a clear, amber or a green color with a brown mud at the bottom. Pour off the acid into another container. If you have a filter, you can use it. Do not pour off any of the mud. The mud is pure gold.

When all the acid is poured off, add tap water to the mud. Stir and let the mud settle. Pour off the water into the container with the acid. If you have a filter, you can use it. Do not pour off any particles of brown. Repeat this rinsing 3-4 times or more. but be ready to do it 10 or 15 times or until you think you are losing your mind then 10 more times. Again tests dirty after mucho crazy rinsing

Testing to insure purity: 

Test with aqua ammonia to insure high purity of your gold. Place a drop of aqua ammonia test liquid on the wet gold mud. If you see any change in color to blue, even a very pale blue, rinse and test again.

Give the mud a last rinse, this time with distilled water.

Drying and melting: 

Rinse the mud into a beaker that is made to be heated or into glass coffee pot. Put the beaker or pot on a hot plate to dry the mud. Do not preheat the hot plate or thermal shock may cause the beaker to break.

Melt the dried mud (now a powder). If using a torch, first wrap the powder in tissue paper and then soak that in alcohol. Also, use a Burno crucible. This will keep your gold from being blown away by the gas pressure from the torch. The gold will again take on the appearance of metal. If you've followed the instructions carefully, the gold will be 99.95 % pure with virtually no losses. Or kill your crucible as I did am confidant they must have left out something which led me here it is not that easy
Platinum- 

If you had platinum in your gold, it will not dissolve, to any appreciable degree, in the room temperature aqua regia. It will be left behind when you pour off the aqua regia, prior to precipitation. To insure high purity of the platinum, you will need to re-refine this material. Put this material in a fresh aqua regia bath. This time, however, heat the acid to simmering. Continue heating until all the platinum is dissolved (that may take 1-2 hours). When completely dissolved add 1 ounce of ammonium chloride for every ounce of dissolved platinum. The platinum will precipitate as a red mud. If you want to leave the iridium in the platinum, then wait for it to precipitate before recovering the platinum. Iridium will precipitate as a blue-black mud after the platinum precipitates. Platinum group metals will also show up on the stannous chloride test. Platinum turns red, palladium turns orange and iridium turn blue-black.


I have not found it yet but I am sure there is an better and cheaper way. I have 8 pounds of each Sub Zero to use and Storm Percipitant to use. I am not looking forward to it. I have about 50 pounds of boards to still do.


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## Destroyer (Jun 5, 2007)

Paige said:


> But along with gold ole capitalism is knowledge. Thanks to Lazersteve, we now know what to buy at a reasonable price and have the same product.
> 
> We now just need to klnow what GC salt is and what their "catalyst" is.
> 
> ...



Where is that at? You know the sane way of doing it.


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## shadybear (Feb 8, 2010)

If you follow those instructions you will be back here asking what happened
read the forum
shor should be paying a percentage to this forum for all the people they run off,
if the had high quality and knowledgable customer service they would make mega dollars.
They have the sales and advertising down pat


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Feb 9, 2010)

Best of Shor International is having nothing to do with them.

Best regards.

Manuel


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## Anonymous (Feb 9, 2010)

the stuff is expensive because they can get it, and they can get it because when you search gold refining, or look on ebay, etc they are always in the top few search results.

Jim


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## chemist (Feb 9, 2010)

Destroyer said:


> Paige said:
> 
> 
> > ....We now just need to klnow what GC salt is and what their "catalyst" is.....



If memory serves, GC salt is mostly sodium chloride with a small amount of buffer.
Keep searching, I remember coming across the ingredients for both GC salt and the catalyst somewhere on the internet.


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## Anonymous (Feb 9, 2010)

I believe the salt they use is ammonium chloride and the catalyst is hydrogen peroxide.

Jim


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## chemist (Feb 9, 2010)

Do you remember what the buffer is in the salt?
I thought that the catalyst was a solid peroxide, not a H2O2.


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## Irons (Feb 10, 2010)

This will replace Hydrogen Peroxide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_persulfate

Ammonium Chloride is a buffer.

The catalyst uses a tiny amount of Gold salts to get the reaction started.

BTW, the Patent expired last month, so this is now Public Domain information.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5009755/fulltext.html


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## aflacglobal (Feb 10, 2010)

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6468857

If i'm reading that right don't that mean the patent is also expired on that plastic thinggy he sales for $ 500 . My mind is thinking evil things here. :twisted:


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## Irons (Feb 10, 2010)

aflacglobal said:


> http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6468857
> 
> If i'm reading that right don't that mean the patent is also expired on that plastic thinggy he sales for $ 500 . My mind is thinking evil things here. :twisted:



I bet you could make a kit that works that would sell for a small fraction of what he is asking. Like he says: The Item is non-returnable because what you are buying is information. Now that the said information is 'Prior Art', it's fair game.


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## chemist (Feb 10, 2010)

Get me a 5-gallon bucket and an unglazed flower pot and I'm set.


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## Anonymous (Feb 10, 2010)

Don't they get to file a 10 year extention? or something like that?

Jim


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## Irons (Feb 10, 2010)

james122964 said:


> Don't they get to file a 10 year extention? or something like that?
> 
> Jim



I think most of the claims in that patent were prior art and wouldn't be enforceable anyway. My favorite is the claim to use NaHSO3 to precipitate Gold. :roll:


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## aflacglobal (Feb 10, 2010)

Irons said:


> james122964 said:
> 
> 
> > Don't they get to file a 10 year extention? or something like that?
> ...



I noticed that.  


>>>>>>>>> Starting on page 11


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## aflacglobal (Feb 10, 2010)

And the prices. :shock:


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## Irons (Feb 10, 2010)

aflacglobal said:


> Irons said:
> 
> 
> > james122964 said:
> ...



The porous cups are just the right formulation. <.5 micron.


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