# plz tell me my next step



## goldpete (Jul 6, 2012)

ok ive read the book twice , skipping through the sections that dont apply to what ime doing.
ive removed basemetals in nitric
ive filtered and then used AR.
ive filtered that and ended up with a deep yellow liquid.
i dont have sulphuric acid so i couldnt add that
ive then heated that to atleast a third of its original volume to remove the nitric acid , added a little hcl , heated some more , then when cooled i have added water to about 3 times its volume as stated in the book

now i think im ready to precipitate with smb . can someone tell me the next step.
the reason im asking on here for the next step is because the book talks about using copperas , i only have mbs

i should note that my source of gold is from cell phones and computer parts , so im mostly dealing with gold flake


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## nickvc (Jul 6, 2012)

The answer to the question your asking is in Hoke, try reading it all and use it as your reference as you work. I know this doesn't sound very helpful but in honesty it is, you need to know the answer to these basic problems before you start to process. Cover your beaker and get reading!
You have it nearly right so keep going 8)


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## kurt (Jul 6, 2012)

First off - did you incinerate your foils before going to AR? if not you may have a tin problem.

Also - are you sure when you evaporated & added HCL to rid free nitric that you evaporated far enough. If not you may still have a free nitric problem

Here is something I posted in another tread about evaporating to rid free nitric --- "Mitch - I am betting your problem is 2 fold (1) I am betting you have free nitric yet. The evaporation HCL addition method of getting rid of free nitric is a bit tricky. If you don't evaporate down far enough before adding the HCL the added HCL will not expel the free nitric & there is a fine line between evaporating far enough for the HCL to do it's job & evaporating to far to where your AuCl starts forming a crust

You can tell if you evaporated far enough or not. When you ad the HCL you should get a strong fizz & a puff of brown smoke. If you only get a week sputter & white smoke you did not evaporate far enough. One is the chemical reaction of the nitric being expelled - the other is just the cold HCL hitting the hot AR.

If you don't evaporate far enough to get the chemical reaction to expell the nitric - it doesn't mater how many times you do it - you will still have free nitric. --- That is why it is important to calculate the amount of nitric just needed to dissolve your gold (so you don't get a lot of free nitric) & then go with Harolds method of adding a gold button with some heat to use up any possible free nitric. Then you don't need to evaporate."

You can do a test to find out if you still have free nitric --- take a little bit of your AR solution & put it in a test tube (or shot glass) dissolve some SMB in D-water & ad to the AR a little at a time till it stops forming a precip - then test with stannous - if SMB does not precip any more gold but you still get a positive for gold with stannous - then you did not evaporate enough & you will need to do it again before trying to precip the whole batch

Kurt


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## goldpete (Jul 6, 2012)

kurt said:


> First off - did you incinerate your foils before going to AR? if not you may have a tin problem.
> 
> Also - are you sure when you evaporated & added HCL to rid free nitric that you evaporated far enough. If not you may still have a free nitric problem
> 
> ...


thanks for yr advice kurt , very helpful and much appreciated . the only problem is im having problems mixing my stannous chloride , ive written about that in another post earlier.
i have stannous crystals and havent found the propper way to make it into a liquid . except for the recipe in hokes book , which confuses me , because it says add tin , but isnt stannous already made from tin and hcl ?


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## jimdoc (Jul 6, 2012)

A small piece of tin metal is added to help keep the solution fresh.

Jim


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## goldpete (Jul 6, 2012)

jimdoc said:


> A small piece of tin metal is added to help keep the solution fresh.
> 
> Jim



ok kewl , so without having tin granuals (which i have ordered but i wont get for over a week ) can i still make up a solution with just the stannous crystals . and how do i make it ?


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## jimdoc (Jul 6, 2012)

goldpete said:


> ok kewl , so without having tin granuals (which i have ordered but i wont get for over a week ) can i still make up a solution with just the stannous crystals . and how do i make it ?



Can you post a picture of these crystals? I have used Hoke's instructions using stannous chloride powder. I would suggest trying the same formula with the crystals. Or you could always get some tin solder to use.

Jim


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## goldpete (Jul 6, 2012)

jimdoc said:


> goldpete said:
> 
> 
> > ok kewl , so without having tin granuals (which i have ordered but i wont get for over a week ) can i still make up a solution with just the stannous crystals . and how do i make it ?
> ...



sure buddy , i hope you can see what you need from these pics


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## jimdoc (Jul 6, 2012)

I would think that should work using Hoke's formula. It probably got moisture in it at one point, because that looks like it should be powder like the stuff I used.

Jim


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## Geo (Jul 6, 2012)

re-hydrate using hcl. trial and error. dissolve a small bit of gold.start with hcl and add a small amount of crystal at a time. mix the hcl and crystals testing on the gold bearing solution until you get a good reaction.


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## goldpete (Jul 7, 2012)

thankyou so much jim and geo.
im currently having a win ,im so excited. i feel im finally getting somewhere.

i have just evaporated the nitric , i put a small amount of hcl , returned to the heat , then it went bright yellow and foamy and heaps of brown fumes came off as mentioned in hokes book.
i then put a little more hcl and heated , only a small amount of brown fumes came off and it didnt foam , then to be sure i put a little more hcl and im almost done evaporating that and i have hot water ready to add


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