# Lime Green Auric Chloride?



## jhize (May 6, 2008)

OK. Newbie here. I followed the AP process (thanks lasersteve), when it came time to dissolve the gold, I got a lime green solution. I'm gessing this is due to the presence of copper and that I did not wash thouroughly. If that is the case, what can I do at this point? Is there a way to get rid of the green?


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## Rag and Bone (May 6, 2008)

I've had the same problem when I rushed the process and not properly cleaned the foils before dissolving them. I have noticed a big difference when dropping the gold. The properly cleaned foils drop in minutes and yield nice clumpy, light colored powder that settles easily. The dirty foils dropped slowly and yielded dark powder that didn't hold together and was more difficult to work with. I was not impressed with the quality of the powder from the dirty foils, even after the full washing routine. 

My suggestion, drop the gold. Redissolve in Acid-Clorox, drop again, and wash it thoroghly. Next time, get the foils as clean as possible before dissolving. A little extra work on the front end goes a long way.


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## Palladium (May 6, 2008)

If you want clean gold it is recommened that you process it 2 times. The first time you will almost always drag down some other metals if you start with a lot of garbage. Even with washing it can still not always get it all clean. According to what you are trying to acheive perfection or just seperation .


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## jhize (May 6, 2008)

Thanks all,

Right now I'm just looking for seperation. How would you go about seperating this solution? 

And second related question: Sodium Metabisulfate is NOT the same as Sodium Polybisulfate correct? Seems like an obvious answer is coming my way....I saw that the names are interchangeable.


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## Platdigger (May 6, 2008)

First of all, are you sure it's "sulfate" and not "sulfite" that you are refering to? 

There is a difference.
Randy


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## jhize (May 6, 2008)

Ah! Good catch, no, I just misspoke...its sulFITE, thats whats needed right?


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## Palladium (May 6, 2008)

Where can I find smb(sodium metabisulfite) (not sulfate) ? 
http://www.chemistrystore.com/sodium_metabisulfite.htm


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## jhize (May 6, 2008)

Yeah, I know where to get it now, thanks. I thought I had found an off-the-shelf product made up of SMB but not. 

Anyway, is the a way to seperate the green from my auric chloride. I think you may have answered that but just checking. 

Are you saying use SMB to precipitate it and then...?


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## Harold_V (May 7, 2008)

jhize said:


> Are you saying use SMB to precipitate it and then...?



And then wash the hell out of it, following the procedure I recommend. It will improve the quality immensely. 

For better than 9995 quality, a second refining is recommended.

Harold


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## Palladium (May 7, 2008)

Harold_V said:


> jhize said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Getting pure gold (shining) (Acid Wash)

There are NO shortcuts. If you want pure gold, you MUST follow accepted practice. Remember, those that went before us have gone through this time and again----and have perfected a process that will yield good quality------so if you're interested in achieving that level, follow instructions that are at your disposal. Don't experiment-----leave that for others with time on their hands that are content to re-invent the wheel. This is particularly important for you, considering you're trying to establish a refining service. 

Depending on what you're starting with, you may have a hard time achieving a good level of purity the first time through. That's to be expected. Part of the problem is mechanical drag-down, where you're working with very heavily contaminated solutions, part of which follow the gold. They're not always easy to wash out, even when boiling with HCL. 

My advice to you is this: 

Process your gold the first time, using conventional means. Allow as little in the way of contaminations (metals) as is humanely possible, to be included with the gold. Use only clean vessels. Wash them well between operations-----and use BonAmi cleanser if necessary to remove stubborn stains. Do not use other cleansers, for they scratch the glass. Filter before precipitating, and insure that the filter does not allow particulate matter to pass. If it does, re-filter, or go to a better filter grade. A Whatman #2 does an outstanding job for first refined metals, although they are not cheap. I used them exclusively for filtering first run gold chloride. I felt they were worth the extra money. At all times, keep your beaker covered with a watch glass of appropriate size, to prevent contamination from other sources. 

Precipitate your gold using conventional methods, collect it and wash it well. It's best to use a precipitant that does not add contamination. I preferred SO2, but there are others that work equally as well, I'm sure. 

First wash should be in boiling HCL and tap water. Boil for a prolonged period of time. Take up the solution with tap water, decant after the gold has settled, then rinse with tap water, which should again be brought to a boil. After it has boiled for a period of time, add more tap water to cool the lot, then decant as before. Rinse again, and do it until the wash water comes off clear. Next, wash the gold with ammonium hydroxide and tap water. Heat it until it boils. You'll notice that the solution gets discolored. How much is determined by how dirty your gold was when you started. The ammonia evaporates fairly quickly, so you can't boil very long. Add tap water to cool, decant, and follow up with a tap water rinse, again, boiling the water. Add tap water to cool, then decant. You now repeat the HCL and tap water wash. You'll be amazed that suddenly more contaminants will come off. Boil well, add water to cool, decant, repeat the water rinse, decant, then, and this is important-------start the refining process all over again by dissolving the well washed gold powder in aqua regia. I'll talk about that in a minute, but these are indicators you should have observed along the way, aside from the fact that you could see contaminants being washed from your gold powder. 

The gold powder, which started out quite dark, is now much lighter in color. 

It may have been rather loose and flocculent, but now is eager to agglomerate, so it forms lumps and settles quickly. 

While these instructions sound like a lot of wasted time, when you process what you think is pure gold, you'll see evidence in the remaining solutions that it was not. The evidence of which I speak will be in your solution when you've extracted the gold for a second time. It's a lot of work which is why I re-refined my gold in large lots, often as much as 200 ounces at each refining, so the time spent yielded a large return. 

When you precipitate for a second time, one of the things that you can do to help eliminate unwanted elements is to use a different precipitant than the first time. I never bothered with that, but it's good advice if you're fighting with a given contaminant and can't get rid of it by other means. That was never a problem for me. 

Wash the gold powder the second refining by the same methods and sequences as the first refining. Make sure all your equipment is scrupulously clean. Force dry the gold when it's washed by heating the beaker at a very low heat for a long period of time. Avoid allowing the beaker to achieve boiling temperature---you get minor steam explosions that blow gold out of the container. As the gold dries, it's a good idea to swish it around the beaker occasionally, which prevents the gold from bonding to the beaker. The residual matter in water tends to form around the gold and bond it to the beaker. While it's a contaminant of sorts, it does NOT alloy with your gold, so it is not a source of lowering the fineness unless you have strange elements in your water. For me, it was not a problem. 

Once dry, you can then melt your gold. A clean, never used for anything but pure gold, dish can be used. It should be covered with a coating of borax, but nothing else. DO NOT USE ANY SODA ASH. If there are any oxides present, they'll be reduced and absorbed by the molten gold instead of locked in the flux. 

Your torch should be cleaned of loose crud before melting your gold. Run fine abrasive cloth over it until it's very clean, then wipe it down with a damp cloth to remove any traces of dust. Think clean every inch of the operation-----otherwise you undo all the hard work you've done getting your gold pure. 

Your other option is to operate a small gold cell, but you must have several ounces of pure gold for the electrolyte.. That is likely not a viable choice for you at this point in time. 

Harold

Classics never die. :wink:


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## jhize (May 7, 2008)

Wow.

Thank you both so much. Yes, it seems like alot. But, anything worth doing is worth doing right. 

FYI. I'm not presently considering starting a refining service. I am starting off with this as a hobby and the intent of learning only. I am currently pursuing a BS in chemical engineering (still taking prereqs). 

I'm having difficulty determining how much material (fingers only) would be needed to produce an ounce of gold. Is the powder weight the same as post-melting weight?

Once I have that approximation, I'm curious to see how the cost per pound (of fingers) compares to the market price.

Thanks again.


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## Rag and Bone (May 7, 2008)

Fingers run from ~1-3g per pound. You don't lose gold when you melt it. If you are refering to the ebay market price, you will be hard pressed to make any money.


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## Harold_V (May 7, 2008)

jhize said:


> FYI. I'm not presently considering starting a refining service.


I understood that when I posted my message. 

Ralph copied from a previous post I had made some time ago, not long after the forum was founded. My reply was in response to an individual that WAS starting a refining service, thus the confusion. 

Having refined for industry for more than 20 years, I was driven to provide instructions that served me exceedingly well, in the hopes that he could avoid some of the negative aspects of trying to master an art that, up to now, has been kept secret from all but a select few. 

Ralph didn't make it as clear as he might, but has provided a needed service for you. I had failed to link my comments to the proper instructions, having answered your post in haste. 

Regardless of your purpose, you'll find the instructions will lead you to a high level of purity, which is not as easily accomplished as some might suspect. 



> I'm having difficulty determining how much material (fingers only) would be needed to produce an ounce of gold. Is the powder weight the same as post-melting weight?



Considering I avoided running e scrap in my business, I'll leave the answer to the volume of fingers that are required for an ounce for those with experience to reply. As far as the weight of the gold powder as opposed to it's melted weight, you can expect a miniscule loss in melting. The gold tends to be somewhat reactive, and often sparks, tossing minute particles of gold out of the dish. I had a practice of melting my powder in a melting tray, one that caught the tiny balls of gold. 

If you do your melting in a confined area, a simple cleanup afterwards will recover the bulk of losses, which are relatively small in the scheme of things. 

If your gold is not pure, and it gets well oxidized in the process of melting, you can safely assume that the borax that is present will absorb some of the oxides. The losses will be small, once again, but there are losses. I would expect well under 1%, but never did a study. 

Don't make the mistake of weighing your gold powder if it has not been force dried by considerable heat. You'll come to understand that it holds a reasonable amount of acid once air dried, in spite of having been well washed. Only by heating well above the boiling point of water will the gold be dried totally. You can do that by drying the gold in the beaker, after it has been washed. Do so carefully, with the lowest possible flame on our hotplate, for the wet gold often forms steam pockets and will pop gold out of the beaker. Swirl the beaker on a regular basis until you see all free water has been evaporated. Once that has occurred, you can raise the temperature of the previously low flame, to heat the gold quickly. Keep swirling occasionally, to insure that the traces of minerals that are in the water do not cake the gold to the beaker. The traces of contaminants should not enter the gold when it is melted, instead being absorbed by the flux cover in the dish. My experience indicates they are not a problem, but my water also contained no iron or manganese. 

How about a report on your first venture? Pictures would be welcome. 

Luck!

Harold


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## jhize (May 7, 2008)

Harold,

You advice and experience is priceless. I will keep you informed of my progress. This forum is awesome. 

I'm going to attempt to consolidate all the info I have gathered for the AP process into a "recipe" format. I think this will help me along. I've found that some small steps (like the drying process above) are left ou of some of the videos and posts I've seen.

I'm pretty sure lazersteve has this covered in his DVDs but I haven't ordered them yet.

Thanks again !


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## Anonymous (May 7, 2008)

For precipitating gold from AuCl3, can you use magnesium in a single replacement reaction? If it worked, the only drawback I can see is if some Mg didn't dissolve & was mixed with the gold, but washing with HCl & filtering would remove any excess Mg.


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