# I lost 7g of gold



## lahoop (Apr 14, 2020)

Hi to all I got 7g of gold these grams I found them from the land . I wanted to purify them so I put them in aqua regia when they dissolved completely. then I added SMB but nothing precipitate. please let me know where the problem is?


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 14, 2020)

You haven't lost your gold unless you've thrown away your solution or any material that didn't dissolve. You've just misplaced it temporarily.

My first suspicion is that you used too much nitric acid when you dissolved it, and when you tried to drop it back out of solution, the excess nitric dissolved it right back into solution again.

First, are you sure what you dissolved was gold and not fool's gold? How do you know? How did you test it? Was this placer gold or an ore?

Second, how much of each acid did you use? Did you do anything to eliminate excess nitric acid?

Let's start with answers to those questions and go from there.

Dave


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## lahoop (Apr 15, 2020)

I appreciate your post , see I prepared aqua regia 150ml of HCL then I added 50 ml of nitric acid finally, I left the solution with my gold  3 hours then adding SMB maybe 5 tea spoons but after 1.5 hour there was a white precipitate in the bottom of the flask.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 15, 2020)

Well, at least you answered a couple of the questions. As I suspected, you used WAY too much nitric acid. You probably only needed 5 to 10 ml for your 7 grams of gold. So you had about 40 ml too much. When you try to drop your gold, it is being redissolved.

You didn't answer whether this is placer gold or an ore, or how you tested to be sure it is gold and not something else.

Dave


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## lahoop (Apr 15, 2020)

No it is not a placer gold, they are nuggets I sold 10 g to a jewelry shop and he confirmed me that is gold
please what is the best ratio in this case of acids


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 15, 2020)

The best method is to cover gold with HCl, warm it, then add nitric in tiny increments, adding only enough to get the job done. As a very rough estimate, you need about 3 ml. of HCl, and 1 ml of nitric to dissolve a gram of gold, but there are many variables. Those are just rough numbers. It will not hurt to add excess HCl, but you do not want to use too much nitric. You want to add a small amount of nitric and let it work until any reaction stops. If there is still undissolved material, add a bit more nitric. If there is still undissolved material, and an addition of nitric doesn't cause a reaction, try adding more HCl. When there is no more reaction, you're done adding acid.

Now that is a very brief summary. Just enough information to get you in trouble, but hopefully enough to get you started in studying the forum to get all the details you need to succeed.

Dave


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## jarlowski1 (Apr 15, 2020)

While I agree with you Dave 100% that is how one should proceed from the very beginning in order to get himself out of this mess (correct me if I am wrong) First add some Hcl to see if the white powder is dissolved (maybe add about 50ml) If it doesn't dissolve filter the solution to separate the powder save it until you recover your 7 grams of gold. Then he should evaporate the Aqua Regia solution down till it is a syrup like consistency then add Hcl up to where his original volume was (watching to see if there is brown fumes) then continue this process until no more brown fumes can be seen then double the solution volume with water (distilled water is prefered) then proceed with adding the calculated amount of smb (I would add 9 grams). Now the real question is since he has been a member since 2008 why did he make this simple mistake in the first place. My suggestion is to read the forum on safety and disposal of the waste since he obviously hasn't studied very much in the last 11-12 years.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 15, 2020)

Jarlowski, I agree my advice was not on how to clean up his mess, but on how to process in the future.

Dave


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## anachronism (Apr 15, 2020)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Jarlowski, I agree my advice was not on how to clean up his mess, but on how to process in the future.
> 
> Dave



Yes but you missed the old thing about reducing to a syrup. That's so 2008 and Harold. There's much better ways now don't you agree Dave?


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## jarlowski1 (Apr 16, 2020)

anachronism said:


> FrugalRefiner said:
> 
> 
> > Jarlowski, I agree my advice was not on how to clean up his mess, but on how to process in the future.
> ...



I agree there are other ways but the reason why I suggested that method is because we don't really know what he has in solution so rather than add anything else to the solution I opted to keep to what he has already added. It may seem off but that's just my logic on it. I also forgot to mention that he should test his solution with stannous chloride to confirm gold.


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## butcher (Apr 16, 2020)

The Egyptians worked gold a few years back, but I would not call them or their techniques too old fashion for us to learn a thing or two from them, they worked with much less than we have today but we as individuals will be lucky to have the understanding and skills in the art the old fashioned professionals did more with less Using hard-won knowledge and skills and in most cases worked gold or many of these precious metals better than we can, we can surely benefit from listening and learning a few tricks that will help us in our ever so smarter and fast-paced modern world.


I often use those good old techniques and I do not see them as being so old fashion, the 2008 Harold and the 1940 Hoke thing, these were professional refiners who were top masters in the trade what they teach just makes common sense to me and has helped me in all of my refining processes and helped to improve my skills.

When done properly you will not have much to evaporate, mainly water the water from the HCl, water from the nitric, water produced from the chemical reactions ... Done properly you can lower the amount of acid which is converted to toxic gases leaving the reaction, gases that if left in solution would react with metals... 

Although I often like to dilute my acids with added water and use the minimum heat to start the process of dissolving gold with, mainly to help keep from unnecessary evolution of toxic gases and to help keep them in solution doing work, this added water does not add unnecessary time to evaporation the process, as the evaporation process is going on -- the whole time the gold is going into solution, and with less evolution of gases, my acids go further doing work, it may take me a little longer to dissolve my gold but I do not mind waiting for a little bit. When it comes to gold I have learned some hard-won patience.


When using only the required amount of acids (slight excess of HCl), small nitric additions of HNO3 with mild heating, evaporating the solution as the gold goes into solution, before all of the gold goes into solution, with the solution at this point now very concentrated and the heat raised moderately a drop of nitric at a time, with the time between another drop and heat intervals of the already concentrated solution.

Until the gold metal converts to ions, we have no overuse of nitric, the gold in solution with the evaporation process as taught by the masters in refining like Harold, Miss C.M.Morse Hoke, and others...

Harold would often recommend adding a gold button to those who used way too much nitric, he also recommended heat letting the gold and heat take care of the problem... I do the same but my gold is the original gold just not completely dissolved doing the job of consuming free nitric acid...

Hoke actually recommended using more nitric than needed, but then again she also gave very effective instructions of how to use the heat of evaporation using steam table as a heat source, as not to overdue on heating, or to prevent boiling the solution (although she may have called it boiling in the slang terms of the day and of her descriptions as she speaks of the evaporation process) to concentrate and with acid additions, she would consume not only the excess nitric acid, or just the NOx gases (that urea only works on), but also describes how to eliminate the nitrate salts formed in the reactions from base metals or metal ions in solution (nitrate salts that concentrate in solution and are not evolved with heating or concentration and can be hard to eliminate otherwise) ...

Noting: The use of sulfamic acid was not so common in the past (I do not know if the Egyptians had a source down somewhere on the lower end of the Nile river or not, but surely they done something similar with sulfuric or something else. they did not refine gold too brittle to work, so they eliminated the lead somehow.

Noting: sulfamic acid is not necessary, to de-NOx, (as far as I am concerned) if you do not use excess nitric acid, to begin with, and use the heat of evaporation, as well as using a little common sense in your acid additions and have a few drops of H2SO4 and some heat (not boiling)...

After the gold is completely dissolved (note we already have a very concentrated solution working this way, we have already driven off free water, reactive gases from the acids, any excess free acid, and just have gold chloride salts in solution with negligible base metals in solution, 

if we see towards the end of the reaction we are having trouble getting the last of the gold into solution or the gold is not dissolving or reacting to the drop of nitric and heat--- we can add a little splash of HCl (not much) it is mostly water--- if nitrates salts are in solution or free nitric (and the limiting reagent to dissolve the gold is HCl, or our solution is Low HCl content of chloride salt content) in this the very concentrated gold chloride solution will evolve a red toxic cloud as we add HCl and some more gold reacts going into solution with the added HCl acid and nitric or nitrate salts already involved...

Now we only have to leave it on the heat a short time for the water that was in the drops of acid we added vapors off, add another millimeter or so of HCl watch for the red cloud as the water from this acid vapors of the concentrated solution... a few drops of sulfuric acid (will also convert any nitrates to nitric under the heat this quickly goes of as gas), the few drops sulfuric is very effective in the concentrated solution (H2SO4 loves water) and will help in several ways beside converting any lead chlorides in solution to insoluble sulfates. (See Hoke's book). Sulfamic can be substituted for the sulfuric acid it will help those who have not learned to control their reach for the flask and use too much nitric, and help convert the lead to sulfates, without the small added benifit of hydrogen molecule of the acidic that sulfuric acid has to the reaction.


Actually now the gold is dissolved, and the solution which at this point is very concentrated almost reddish in color like wet syrup, (if not it is not far from it) the gold chloride is free of nitric acid nitrates and NOx or other oxidizing gases.

We did not add salts of urea nitrate or other compounds to our gold solution...

Then to cool, add Ice to precipitate silver chloride and lead,...
Or
Dilute with three parts of water and let sit overnight (or longer the better) in the cold night the (colder the better) the (water additions here means more waste to treat later but it also has its benefits as well as cons...

Much of the decision to dilute the concentrate can also depend of if PGMs are involved in the solution, adding unnecessary water to this concentrate would need evaporation (where the ice will not add much water) as the precipitation of the PGM's needs a very concentrated solution so here Ice may be easier (although) without the benefits of dilution to help eliminate silver and lead...
Instead of ice no ice or just a small piece so as to not add much water and then also chilling in a freezer or the snow will also help and give time in settling the insoluble salts... 

Sure watching water evaporate can be like watching paint dry, well I just pay attention to some other work in the lab while the paint drys on its own, and before you know it I am done and do not notice the time involved.

I work much of the time in a corning dish (probably old fashion) with a large surface area (a heck of a lot will evaporate fairly fast with mild heating, the larger the surface area the better...

Decanting is an art in itself, to remove liquid and not disturb the very fluffy easily dissolved salts...
Filtering another art.
Reducing the gold with a preferred reducing agent, settling decanting...
Wash the gold powder to get the gold shiny per Harold's very professional instructions also paying attention to Lou's solid advice on the chemistry of the gold washing procedures.

Redissolve the gold powders a second time (third if the first was a recovery operation and not a refining operation). 
for many nitric is very expensive hard or risky to get or scarce for many...
The finely divided gold powder can be dissolved using HCl and sodium hypochlorites (bleach) or some other oxidizers, note bleach is a lot of added water, produces more waste to evaporate later, crates more sodium chloride salts which will saturate or come out of solution as salts in evaporating, consumes more HCl, but here again, everything has its pros and cons and needs to be considered.
Chlorine the oxidizer formed from bleach and HCl is easier to eliminate by time sitting in the warm glow of the sunshine, or with mild heat, no real need to concentrate to salts...

if using aqua regia, it will not take as much nitric acid to put the gold back into the solution it will take less this round as the gold powder is so fine and the surface area is so large it is easier than dissolving larger nuggets or shot...

Using a different reducing agent the second refining to precipitate the gold, helps to get the gold refined to higher purity as one reducing agent will not carry base metal the other would visa versa, choosing different reducing agents for the solution based on the base metals involved and the reducing agent reactions with the base metals...

I probably missed a lot of important details, and am not trying to give all of the details of the processes,

The point is we can still learn from Hoke's book, and by reading the wisdom of Harold (who helped the common man like me Lou, Laser Steve all of us members to be able to learn a skill kept secret from us common man to learn, secrets held in mystery by magicians, sorcerers, and alchemist secret bag, and those who wished to profit from these secrets and did not wish to share the valuable knowledge as us common man then would not need them, secrets held from us since the time the Egyptians made King Tut's death mask, We can study the posts and the things Harold and HOke so unselfishly shared with the forum members to be able to learn a thing or two--no matter how smart we think we are not so smart that we can learn something from the masters who knew their skills and could overcome and do with what they had.

My gut feeling tells me we are daily losing more technology or know-how in this modern world of high technology that we are not as smart as we think we are, we are no smarter than the caveman who could do more than we can with less, we just have a better rock cell phone than Fred Flinstone had that we type jibberish on we call modern communication, we could all learn something from the cavemen who were obviously more intelligent than modern man is today.

Well I guess I am a little too old fashion, I like evaporating to dissolve gold and I still like to hunt with a bow and arrow, as old fashion as it maybe it is very effective at keeping food on my table and refined gold to bury for hard times.

But hey this is just my opinion we all have one, yours may be different.


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## anachronism (Apr 16, 2020)

The Egyptians worked gold a few years back, but I would not call them or their techniques too old fashion for us to learn a thing or two from them, they worked with much less than we have today but we as individuals will be lucky to have the understanding and skills in the art the old fashioned professionals did more with less Using hard-won knowledge and skills and in most cases worked gold or many of these precious metals better than we can, we can surely benefit from listening and learning a few tricks that will help us in our ever so smarter and fast-paced modern world.


I often use those good old techniques and I do not see them as being so old fashion, the 2008 Harold and the 1940 Hoke thing, these were professional refiners who were top masters in the trade what they teach just makes common sense to me and has helped me in all of my refining processes and helped to improve my skills.

They may well have been top of their trade at the time but things move on. Techniques improve, and so do the skillsets and equipment that go along with them. As progressive and intelligent as she was, I would suggest that if Ms Hoke were to be reincarnated today she would spend time getting up to speed, and throw her old book away and write a new one. A new one relevant to today’s materials, practices and equipment. Of course the basic chemistry would remain the same however my point is that reliance upon old, dated techniques that have been successfully super ceded is never a good thing. We could build all our houses out of logs and hand tools but give me powered machinery and modern materials every time. 

When done properly you will not have much to evaporate, mainly water the water from the HCl, water from the nitric, water produced from the chemical reactions ... Done properly you can lower the amount of acid which is converted to toxic gases leaving the reaction, gases that if left in solution would react with metals...

Although I often like to dilute my acids with added water and use the minimum heat to start the process of dissolving gold with, mainly to help keep from unnecessary evolution of toxic gases and to help keep them in solution doing work, this added water does not add unnecessary time to evaporation the process, as the evaporation process is going on -- the whole time the gold is going into solution, and with less evolution of gases, my acids go further doing work, it may take me a little longer to dissolve my gold but I do not mind waiting for a little bit. When it comes to gold I have learned some hard-won patience.

That’s great if you have plenty of time on your hands. Not all of us do and we have to adapt accordingly. There’s no benefit to blind patience in this arena because your gold is gold, and your gold sells for whatever it assays for. Yes of course purity appears to be more of an issue in the US than it does over here but I’ll come to that point later on. 


When using only the required amount of acids (slight excess of HCl), small nitric additions of HNO3 with mild heating, evaporating the solution as the gold goes into solution, before all of the gold goes into solution, with the solution at this point now very concentrated and the heat raised moderately a drop of nitric at a time, with the time between another drop and heat intervals of the already concentrated solution.

Again, assuming you are happy to spend all day messing around and coddling your gold. That’s perfectly fine if you do and more power to you however it’s not reality for a lot of people. Especially those who toll refine or even do this professionally. It’s great in theory however in practice not so much. 

Until the gold metal converts to ions, we have no overuse of nitric, the gold in solution with the evaporation process as taught by the masters in refining like Harold, Miss C.M.Morse Hoke, and others...

Harold would often recommend adding a gold button to those who used way too much nitric, he also recommended heat letting the gold and heat take care of the problem... I do the same but my gold is the original gold just not completely dissolved doing the job of consuming free nitric acid...

Which is blindly following the old teachings. It’s neither necessary now nor practical for anyone doing more than a few grammes per year. I have never, and never will put someone down for how much gold they do in their space. There’s nothing wrong with doing a few grammes per year if that gives satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. All I ask is that it’s borne in mind that an ever increasing number of the contributors here do more than a few grammes per year. For these people, the context changes and therefore the processes alter with the context. 

Hoke actually recommended using more nitric than needed, but then again she also gave very effective instructions of how to use the heat of evaporation using steam table as a heat source, as not to overdue on heating, or to prevent boiling the solution (although she may have called it boiling in the slang terms of the day and of her descriptions as she speaks of the evaporation process) to concentrate and with acid additions, she would consume not only the excess nitric acid, or just the NOx gases (that urea only works on), but also describes how to eliminate the nitrate salts formed in the reactions from base metals or metal ions in solution (nitrate salts that concentrate in solution and are not evolved with heating or concentration and can be hard to eliminate otherwise) ...

She certainly did. In the context of the available materials at the time. We’ve moved on. We use radial tyres these days instead of cross ply tyres and why? Because they are better and safer. 

Noting: The use of sulfamic acid was not so common in the past (I do not know if the Egyptians had a source down somewhere on the lower end of the Nile river or not, but surely they done something similar with sulfuric or something else. they did not refine gold too brittle to work, so they eliminated the lead somehow.

Noting: sulfamic acid is not necessary, to de-NOx, (as far as I am concerned) if you do not use excess nitric acid, to begin with, and use the heat of evaporation, as well as using a little common sense in your acid additions and have a few drops of H2SO4 and some heat (not boiling)...

And I would disagree vehemently with you. For many of the reasons I have previously stated. By the way I might have misread you however the Sulphamic reaction produces Sulphuric as a by product. You’re not using the Sulphuric for anything. Also as an aside in nearly ten years of refining I’ve yet to have lead in my gold. There seems to be an unholy fascination with it but I just don’t see it. 

After the gold is completely dissolved (note we already have a very concentrated solution working this way, we have already driven off free water, reactive gases from the acids, any excess free acid, and just have gold chloride salts in solution with negligible base metals in solution,

Are you talking about a recovery dissolve here or a refine? In a recovery dissolve with ewaste you have an absolute shed load of base metals and it’s often like syrup without any evaporation at all. Black goop is a pretty good way to describe it. 

if we see towards the end of the reaction we are having trouble getting the last of the gold into solution or the gold is not dissolving or reacting to the drop of nitric and heat--- we can add a little splash of HCl (not much) it is mostly water--- if nitrates salts are in solution or free nitric (and the limiting reagent to dissolve the gold is HCl, or our solution is Low HCl content of chloride salt content) in this the very concentrated gold chloride solution will evolve a red toxic cloud as we add HCl and some more gold reacts going into solution with the added HCl acid and nitric or nitrate salts already involved...

If your solution is murky the chances are you have run out of Chloride ions. Adding HCl clears it up instantly and prevents the rest of the metals dropping out. If your solution is clear and the reaction stops that’s a lack of oxidant. It’s important to help people understand the difference. 

Now we only have to leave it on the heat a short time for the water that was in the drops of acid we added vapors off, add another millimeter or so of HCl watch for the red cloud as the water from this acid vapors of the concentrated solution... a few drops of sulfuric acid (will also convert any nitrates to nitric under the heat this quickly goes of as gas), the few drops sulfuric is very effective in the concentrated solution (H2SO4 loves water) and will help in several ways beside converting any lead chlorides in solution to insoluble sulfates. (See Hoke's book). Sulfamic can be substituted for the sulfuric acid it will help those who have not learned to control their reach for the flask and use too much nitric, and help convert the lead to sulfates, without the small added benifit of hydrogen molecule of the acidic that sulfuric acid has to the reaction.

Here we go, back on the lead thing again. 


Actually now the gold is dissolved, and the solution which at this point is very concentrated almost reddish in color like wet syrup, (if not it is not far from it) the gold chloride is free of nitric acid nitrates and NOx or other oxidizing gases.

Not in the real world it isn’t. Unless you’re REFINING previously recovered gold you’re more likely looking at your black goop. 

We did not add salts of urea nitrate or other compounds to our gold solution...

Then to cool, add Ice to precipitate silver chloride and lead,...
Or
Dilute with three parts of water and let sit overnight (or longer the better) in the cold night the (colder the better) the (water additions here means more waste to treat later but it also has its benefits as well as cons...

Again in the terms of recovery this is simply wrong. Your volume could be 5 or 10 or even 15 litres of heavy concentrated solution full of base metals. You would be crazy to turn this into up to 45 litres just to drop the silver out. Cool it to drop some of the silver- filter it crystal clear and then precipitate out the gold. The silver that comes down with the gold is cleanable in the wash process, and if it’s a recovery drop it doesn’t matter as much because you’re going to refine it later anyway. The Silver content in most e-waste is marginal at best. It costs more money to chase it than you recover. So if you cannot remove the silver in the wash process (which you should be able to do quite easily with the HCl) then catch it on the refine process and dilute 500ml by three times rather than 15 litres. 



Much of the decision to dilute the concentrate can also depend of if PGMs are involved in the solution, adding unnecessary water to this concentrate would need evaporation (where the ice will not add much water) as the precipitation of the PGM's needs a very concentrated solution so here Ice may be easier (although) without the benefits of dilution to help eliminate silver and lead...
Instead of ice no ice or just a small piece so as to not add much water and then also chilling in a freezer or the snow will also help and give time in settling the insoluble salts...

I typed the paragraph above before reading this one so my bad! However PGM bearing ewaste tends to be extremely specific types of components. Not the ones done in AR so different rules apply because any PGM content in your AR is likely to be miniscule assuming regular components have been dissolved. 

Sure watching water evaporate can be like watching paint dry, well I just pay attention to some other work in the lab while the paint drys on its own, and before you know it I am done and do not notice the time involved.

I work much of the time in a corning dish (probably old fashion) with a large surface area (a heck of a lot will evaporate fairly fast with mild heating, the larger the surface area the better...

I’m afraid I don’t have time to watch water evaporate Sir so I don’t make the volume in the first place. 

Decanting is an art in itself, to remove liquid and not disturb the very fluffy easily dissolved salts...
Filtering another art.
Reducing the gold with a preferred reducing agent, settling decanting...
Wash the gold powder to get the gold shiny per Harold's very professional instructions also paying attention to Lou's solid advice on the chemistry of the gold washing procedures.

I’ve never seen the instructions on Harold’s wash cycle that takes into account gold redissolved in the first HCl wash. Also gold can be redissolved with no Nitric/Nitrates present merely the high valency copper ions in the presence of the Chloride ions from the HCl. Funnily enough Hoke refers to this is you look closely at her stock pot page.

Redissolve the gold powders a second time (third if the first was a recovery operation and not a refining operation).

If you cannot get close to 99% on your recovery then you’re doing something wrong. I often get 99.9% or close on a recovery even from “black goop” and there are a bunch of members including one moderator who can attest to that having seen it first hand. There is no need for “twice refining” unless something has gone awry.


for many nitric is very expensive hard or risky to get or scarce for many... (agreed)
The finely divided gold powder can be dissolved using HCl and sodium hypochlorites (bleach) or some other oxidizers, note bleach is a lot of added water, produces more waste to evaporate later, crates more sodium chloride salts which will saturate or come out of solution as salts in evaporating, consumes more HCl, but here again, everything has its pros and cons and needs to be considered.
Chlorine the oxidizer formed from bleach and HCl is easier to eliminate by time sitting in the warm glow of the sunshine, or with mild heat, no real need to concentrate to salts...

if using aqua regia, it will not take as much nitric acid to put the gold back into the solution it will take less this round as the gold powder is so fine and the surface area is so large it is easier than dissolving larger nuggets or shot...

Using a different reducing agent the second refining to precipitate the gold, helps to get the gold refined to higher purity as one reducing agent will not carry base metal the other would visa versa, choosing different reducing agents for the solution based on the base metals involved and the reducing agent reactions with the base metals...

I probably missed a lot of important details, and am not trying to give all of the details of the processes,

The point is we can still learn from Hoke's book, and by reading the wisdom of Harold (who helped the common man like me Lou, Laser Steve all of us members to be able to learn a skill kept secret from us common man to learn, secrets held in mystery by magicians, sorcerers, and alchemist secret bag, and those who wished to profit from these secrets and did not wish to share the valuable knowledge as us common man then would not need them, secrets held from us since the time the Egyptians made King Tut's death mask, We can study the posts and the things Harold and HOke so unselfishly shared with the forum members to be able to learn a thing or two--no matter how smart we think we are not so smart that we can learn something from the masters who knew their skills and could overcome and do with what they had.

My gut feeling tells me we are daily losing more technology or know-how in this modern world of high technology that we are not as smart as we think we are, we are no smarter than the caveman who could do more than we can with less, we just have a better rock cell phone than Fred Flinstone had that we type jibberish on we call modern communication, we could all learn something from the cavemen who were obviously more intelligent than modern man is today.

I think I’ll just pretend I didn’t read this paragraph and move swiftly on. We wouldn’t have much agreement. 

Well I guess I am a little too old fashion, I like evaporating to dissolve gold and I still like to hunt with a bow and arrow, as old fashion as it maybe it is very effective at keeping food on my table and refined gold to bury for hard times.

And we can agree to differ on the evaporation. 

But hey this is just my opinion we all have one, yours may be different.

Mine most certainly is and I hope I’ve articulated some of my points in a manner that’s acceptable.


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## butcher (Apr 17, 2020)

Just my opinion we all have one, yours is different.

Sure Hoke would update her book if she could, She would have no trouble in a modern chemistry lab and would not take her long to be teaching those modern teachers (who really are not as smart as they think they are).

I have to update my book all of the time, Hoke probably would have loved to update her book just a few years after publishing, but basically it would still contain basically the same basic principles true today, true in her day...

Most people in a modern recovery and refining labs would do well to have C.M. Hoke teaching them today.
they will do well to study her book to improve their skills.


The truth is, either one of use is nowhere near as skilled or as knowledgeable in the chemistry and arts as those who blazed the trails before us, if you think you are--your just fooling yourself, and we always can learn a lot from what they have to teach us If you are too smart or think you know better that is not my problem.

Jon, most anything you have learned about recovery or refining you have learned here on the forum from Harold, if not directly, then indirectly from those He taught these skills, and other members here on the forum, including much or most all of which came from Hokes Book, sure we may have tweaked things some, or have some new gadget, but not much is different, there is really very little new when it comes to recovery or refining and chemistry sure something changes a little bit through the centuries, but not many sure merlins magic gold solution may have changed some but it is still the same gold and the same chemistry.

Sure we can work faster, have better industrial glassware pressure vessel, maybe a new or different reducing agent, some new membrane electrolytic cell, maybe some better chemical for those who do not mind wasting acid over wasting time, some thousands of new worthless patents, and maybe a couple that work...
but the bottom line is it is still chemistry, it is still gold, and there ain't many new thrilling breakthroughs it is still the same old chemistry.

I cannot argue boolean logic.

That is my opinion and input, although I feel I am working with a NOT function here.
I am sure without reading your opinion it will be different.
Now let us hear some of the good ole British boolean logic.

What new breakthrough in this chemistry do I not know about Jon, help me understand that explain that to me and you may be able to change my opinion, but as of this point, there ain't no magic and merlin the magician always has some kind of tricks up his sleeve.

With all of the advancements in the diesel engine and its technology and modern changes, new inventions, and improvements, if I had only one person which I could learn from and I had my choice of a modern diesel school with all of the modern equipment computerized tools and new information, Or I had my choice to learn the diesel engine from Rudolf Diesel himself, I would take lessons from Rudolf.
Not that I would learn all of the advances, but I would learn the basics, the most important principles, tapping into the real brains, and skills that everything else about the engine is based on sure I may have to learn about the more modern changes to the fuel injector system but it is the same old principles and mechanics...

If I wished to learn to recover refine these precious metals and I only had one author or member on this forum to read or study under--

My choice is Harold.

If I had the choice of only one book or author--

It will be Hoke's book.

If I could recommend only one member of the forum, that all new members should learn to recover or refine gold or other metals from--

it is not Butcher or anachronism 

It is Harold and Hokes,

Luckily we have many many members here I would recommend learning from, some suggesting new more modern methods and others using those good ole tried and true methods, those who had ideas that took techniques from other industries and have incorporated them into recovery industry (Laser Steve) those with special skills in the areas they are interested in and have learned from studying the "Masters Of Old" and the few advances in a better method, and have researched all of the old information and have incorporated some new twist to the technique...

I think Harold's beautiful castle that he built with his old tools, hammer, chisels, and rocks (tools the caveman used) will outlast any modern house you build out of your jigsaw, nailgun and fancy new modern Airless paint gun.

I have not seen many modern builders that would not love to learn from the men who built the pyramids.
I know of no building engineer, architect or firm, that could compare with the technical skill and know-how of those ole masters, I do not see our modern buildings even with all of the advances in technology and know-how, structural materials, lasting as long.

Jon, I do not blindly follow old teachings, I do not follow modern teaching or techniques blindly, but I do learn both and incorporate the best of both, I also have patience when it comes to my gold, I would use the same patience with any of my customers gold, I can refine my gold to any purity I wish, I can also make my own jewelry from it, If I wished to make it a business I would have no trouble delivering a quality product in a reasonable amount of time, but with most anything I do for my customers I spend all of the time I need to ensure I am satisfied and my customers are satisfied with my products.
True I do not refine for profit, that is work, I work for a living and mine and recover and refine gold for myself and my friends for fun, I pull my gold from the god's good perfect earth, and use the principles of the universe the science and physics and methods used by early man and modern man to refine my gold as pure as I can and then I bury my gold back into the earth if some day before I die I may need it, if not then well I do not need gold, Oh I love it and can use it, refine it as well as any.

Sure I can recover and refine gold, starting this morning and have it pure and melted by tomorrow morning if I wish using what I have learned from the Masters like Harold, and C.M. Hoke's book, but I prefer to spend my time, as I prefer, fast or slow it is my time, you spend you how you wish.

Jon, I have done refining for others, although that is not my choice, and I would not wish to profit off another man's gold (that is just how I feel), why do you keep bringing up some notion that if someone does not refine for profit or is not in business somehow inferior to you? or less knowledgable? You may think making money is important, I do not. I just do not share your goals or ideas about making money...

Jon, why do you think I just have grams of gold to refine? I have pounds of my gold buried close to the same in silver with a few grams of the PGM metals, now and more pounds of silver and several ounces of gold not in the hole yet.

Sulfamic acid does basically does the same thing sulfuric acid does and what Hoke taught. Not much new there.

There are a few more points you made that I could respond to and list my thoughts and opinions on, some valid points, some I do not see that way, but all in all, we do not see eye to eye, we do not agree that good and fine, we just see it differently, you do your gold how you wish, and I will work my gold how I want too.
you have your own ideas and I have mine.
We both know where we stand on the issue, and we do not have to agree.

If it makes you feel better Jon I will say you are right I do not know what I am talking about.

Jon you are always going to be right so why should I waste my time discussing anything with you? 
When I can be spending my time assisting the members of this forum and friends all over this whole old, modern, world how to become professionals at refining precious metals or to help them find recovery and refine their own gold to whatever purity they wish.

So I will not get into any more long discussions with you on this we obviously do not agree you are right in your eye, and in my eyes, I know that I am right (but willing to listen if you can show me differently), at this point you have failed to convince me of anything except this is not helping other to learn to refine and thus a waste of mine and everyone else's time.

You may come here to stir trouble and love getting into useless debates, but I would rather spend my time learning and helping others do the same, so that is my focus now not to fight the British or their Boolean logic, or spend time chasing them again through the briar patch, ain't no reason to chase it further.


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## anachronism (Apr 17, 2020)

So disagreeing with what you wrote is trying to be right all the time, and it's telling that you then assume I am here to stir trouble or get into useless debates. Wow that's limited in the extreme.

Fine- you carry on your way I'll go mine.


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## butcher (Apr 17, 2020)

Hey something like that.


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## butcher (Apr 17, 2020)

Read Hoke's book, study under the masters like Harold and learn to refine gold, and to become better.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 18, 2020)

Sorry dear members, but this was another thread that went off the rails. I have copied the thread to the Debates and Discussions section and removed the posts that simply became an argument. If anyone would like to add any advice to the OP's questions, please feel free to do so here.

Dave


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## galenrog (Apr 18, 2020)

Thank you, Dave.

Time for coffee. After coffee, it’s time for levain.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 18, 2020)

galenrog said:


> After coffee, it’s time for levain.



I had to look up levain. I learn so much from this forum beyond refining. When do we eat?  

Dave


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## galenrog (Apr 18, 2020)

FrugalRefiner said:


> galenrog said:
> 
> 
> > After coffee, it’s time for levain.
> ...



After a series of stretch and folds, boules will be shaped and placed in bannetons overnight. Oven goes on at 495F when I get up to preheat combo cooker. Loaves go in one hour later. 25 minutes at 495F. Remove lid. 20 minutes at 445F. Other people do the baking a bit differently. All I want is a good oven spring and an open crumb. Yes, it is science that must be experimented with on a small scale, one loaf at a time, until a technique has been mastered that works for you. I figure I will be good enough to go beyond the basics once I have been successful at least 10 weekends in a row. I have had as many abject failures as successes since beginning my sourdough journey a few months ago, while recovering from surgery.

An analogy could be made regarding pm recovery and refining, but I will leave that in your capable hands.

Back to the dough.


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## nickton (Apr 30, 2020)

jarlowski1 said:


> While I agree with you Dave 100% that is how one should proceed from the very beginning in order to get himself out of this mess (correct me if I am wrong) First add some Hcl to see if the white powder is dissolved (maybe add about 50ml) If it doesn't dissolve filter the solution to separate the powder save it until you recover your 7 grams of gold. Then he should evaporate the Aqua Regia solution down till it is a syrup like consistency then add Hcl up to where his original volume was (watching to see if there is brown fumes) then continue this process until no more brown fumes can be seen then double the solution volume with water (distilled water is prefered) then proceed with adding the calculated amount of smb (I would add 9 grams). Now the real question is since he has been a member since 2008 why did he make this simple mistake in the first place. My suggestion is to read the forum on safety and disposal of the waste since he obviously hasn't studied very much in the last 11-12 years.



The doubling your solution volume with water part of this rings an alarm in my head. I remember a post a while back about too dilute a solution before dropping causes problems because the precipitated gold becomes too fine. The advice was to evaporate most water and get a smaller amount of liquid before dropping the gold, or simply not to dilute it at all--if I recall correctly... 

-just an observation.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 30, 2020)

nickton said:


> jarlowski1 said:
> 
> 
> > While I agree with you Dave 100% that is how one should proceed from the very beginning in order to get himself out of this mess (correct me if I am wrong) First add some Hcl to see if the white powder is dissolved (maybe add about 50ml) If it doesn't dissolve filter the solution to separate the powder save it until you recover your 7 grams of gold. Then he should evaporate the Aqua Regia solution down till it is a syrup like consistency then add Hcl up to where his original volume was (watching to see if there is brown fumes) then continue this process until no more brown fumes can be seen then double the solution volume with water (distilled water is prefered) then proceed with adding the calculated amount of smb (I would add 9 grams). Now the real question is since he has been a member since 2008 why did he make this simple mistake in the first place. My suggestion is to read the forum on safety and disposal of the waste since he obviously hasn't studied very much in the last 11-12 years.
> ...



Everyone has their own procedures that work for them. I would probably do a few things differently, but that's just me.

When evaporating AR to syrup, I don't add enough HCl to reach the original volume. A small amount will suffice to expel excess nitrates as NOx gasses (brown fumes) and avoids having to re-evaporate as much solution and HCl. Repeat as needed till no more (or minimal) NOx is seen.

What you do next depends on the feedstock and your subsequent processes/preferences. Harold would drop the gold from a concentrated solution, but he still added ice that would dilute his solutions while cooling them, then include washes with ammonia to eliminate any silver that was still in the concentrated solution. GSP would dilute to three times the volume to precipitate the silver, filter it out, then drop the gold.

I agree that gold dropped from a concentrated solution will usually agglomerate better and settle more quickly, while that dropped from a dilute solution will be finer and take longer to settle. But some of that depends on how much solution you're starting with. If you've evaporated your solution to a syrup, tripling the volume still doesn't give you a lot of solution. If you've dissolve a couple of grams of gold in a liter of solution, you'll have a very fine precipitate. 

It's all a matter of experience and preference. We all develop processes that work for us.

Dave


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## nickton (Apr 30, 2020)

I found the post I was referring to:

Re: Precipitate+Heat.........
Report Quote
Post by FrugalRefiner » April 29th, 2018, 11:56 am

Heat and agitation help. Precipitating from a concentrated solution also helps. Gold reduced from a dilute solution will have a more difficult time agglomerating into large particles that will settle quickly. The extreme example of this is a solution in which the gold forms a colloid, which may never settle until the colloid is broken.

Dave
Printer friendly copy of C. M. Hoke's Refining Precious Metal Wastes.
Screen readable copy of C. M. Hoke's Refining Precious Metal Wastes.


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## jarlowski1 (Apr 30, 2020)

Ok so yes if he had 3 liters of solution and evaporated that down to a syrup then yes add hcl to original volume would not be conducive to be dropping gold from, but if you go back to he had stated that the solution was about 200ml in total containing 7 grams to me that is a pretty decent concentration and if you boiled that down to a syrup and added hcl to get rid of the nitric in solution then boiling again an so on until the last addition came up with no fumes, raising this to the original volume would be 200ml containing 7g of gold even if you doubled that to 400ml that solution would still be concentrated enough to precipitate and settle with no issues and gold particle size would be just fine.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 30, 2020)

Yes, I'm not trying to disagree with anyone. All situations are different.

My dad was a machinist. When he would make a drawing and try to show an angle or a relationship, he would always draw it in an exaggerated example, then always say "this is exaggerated", hence my example of a couple of grams of gold in a liter of solution. The OPs solution was somewhere in between.

But 7 grams of gold can be dissolved in less than 30 ml of HCL and less than 10 ml of nitric. 200 ml is still far more than needed. If I evaporated it down to a syrup, I still wouldn't add enough HCl to bring it back to 200 ml.

Dave


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## Shark (Apr 30, 2020)

FrugalRefiner said:


> It's all a matter of experience and preference. We all develop processes that work for us.
> Dave



I think that is the key to what Dave is saying. I find myself more often doing a project with a plan that will change based upon what I see and/or how a solution reacts. Often on my small scale it can be as simple as being out of a needed chemical, so instead of using HCl and nitric, I may use HCl with bleach or a nitrate fetilizer or a stump remover. I have found when doing gold filled I prefer to use poorman's nitric over "store bought" on medium sized lots but the amount of silver involved can change that plan back to the store bought.

As for diluting AR, it depends on if I am in a recovery stage or a straight refining stage. Even then it all depends on what I am seeing as the job progresses. A few years ago, it would have been straight by the book, even if knew there would be a headache at some point. Time and experience along with reading the forum, and books, can teach us when a change can be safely made. Often we forget that after a drop the next step is washing or cleaning our resulting metal powders. This can also play a big role in when we or how we begin the refine and how we proceed. I don't like to use ammonia, so often I will dilute a refine where with a recovery I often drop from a concentrated solution. Based on what metals went into the AR and what I am seeing determines which I use as well. 

There are many ways to accomplish a given job, it all depends on who is doing it and their level of comfort and experience. Because we do it differently does not mean one is right and one is wrong. If it produces the required purity, it should all be good.


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## jarlowski1 (Apr 30, 2020)

I totally agree with both of you Shark and Dave. And Yeah Dave I probably would not bring the HCl back up to the 200ml mark either. I was more or less trying to clear up any confusion on what I originally wrote since nickton mentioned something about it. If the OP follow my instructions 100 times (exaggerated) eventually he would begin to understand what he is supposed to be looking for. In this case the absence of NOx gases and thus would begin to find his own way of doing things. Hopefully he would understand not to use way too much nitric in the first place.

On a side note Dave my father is a machinist as well; it truely is a dying trade...


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## goldenchild (Apr 30, 2020)

I was never a fan of evaporating to remove excess nitric. It takes too long and I'm too impatient for it. I always like using nitric short of enough to digest all the gold and then adding very small amounts at the very end. Doing it that way you can use urea to remove the tiny bit of excess nitric in solution. For the first refining you could even use smb to remove the excess nitric. 

On the second refining is when I use ice to bring down any silver left in solution. If you did everything right on the first pass there should be little to no chloride. Filter the solution (no matter what) and drop the gold. If your solution happens to drop the gold too finely for your taste simply heat the solution (hot). It will bring everything down fast and clump it all up very nicely.


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