# auric sodium chloride



## bastinado (Jan 28, 2017)

Dear sirs 

If i have solution of AuNaCl4 auric sodium chloride 

how i would precipitate the gold from this salt ?


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Jan 28, 2017)

Sodium metabisulfite/sulfur dioxide/copperas/sodium nitrite/zinc dust/electrolysis


----------



## 4metals (Jan 29, 2017)

What process did you use to solvate the gold? This is one of those simple sounding questions that can get you into more trouble than necessary because you try something without having fully detailed the process to get to where you are. 

Tell us what material you dissolved, and how it was dissolved, and roughly the concentration you have in solution and we can tell you the best way to proceed.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jan 29, 2017)

4metals said:


> What process did you use to solvate the gold? ...



I understand that gold in solution can form complexes, but, can you elaborate on how this one in particular comes about?
For instance, is this something that is common place to happen when doing regular gold processes (AR, is my main concern.-Im assuming it isn't). And, does this complex sodium-gold salt have problems precipitating out of solution with standard methods?(similar to how we should keep ammonia out of our processes, especially with pgm's, as they form a complex that even zinc has trouble reducing)?

How do they make this complex on a grand scale?
How might we accidentally make it?

I skimmed through my books, but they were not very forthcoming with pertinent information.


----------



## aga (Jan 29, 2017)

I can't even to pretend to know all about this subject, but lots of things can go into forming a 'complex', which is basically a type of stable arrangement of atoms which may or may not have exactly 'reacted' in the formal sense (i.e. formed electron bonds).

An easy to make and beautiful coloured one is tetraamminecopper(II) sulfate - just add ammonia to a concentrated solution of copper sulphate.

With a Refiner's random solution of metals and acids, if you add anything that has not already been extensively researched, there is a chance of making one or more 'complexes' which contain the atoms you're looking for.

The big thing is that complexes do not necessarily behave the way you want, e.g. precipitate with SMB etc.


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Jan 29, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > What process did you use to solvate the gold? ...
> ...



NaAuCl4 It's just gold dissolved in aqua regia that is added NaCl.

HAuCl4 + NaCl -> NaAuCl4 + HCl (HCl being lost as a gas)

It can be formed with poor's man aqua regia.

But in a solution with water they are as [AuCl4]- and Na+, so normal aqueous reduction methods works.


----------



## 4metals (Jan 29, 2017)

The reason for asking for details is the OP's question involves a specific species of gold salt. Why would one add salt to aqua regia if aqua regia would dissolve the gold without the salt? My original thought was that Hydrochloric Acid and Sodium Chlorate were used to digest finely divided gold. 

If Hydrochloric / Sodium Chlorate was used, there would be no prerequisite to denox the solution. But as I said in my post above, there is no sense in speculation on our part until we have more details from the OP concerning his process. Simple question actually?


----------



## bastinado (Jan 29, 2017)

OK 

I have dissolved my gold in relatively large amount of Hcl 30 % concentration then and bleach ?( 5% Naoh + 5% Naocl ) and then i have add some of SMB , and when i found no gold precipated i have add some of H2O2 , then some of sodium thiosulfate and fainally lettile ammount of gold precipated with some of sulfer 

the solution color is still yellow and other one green with golden yellow 

the green solution becouse is dissolved the IC small wires in the Acid bleach (some of copper in the solution)

so i assumed some or may be the most of the gold have make complex with Nacl 

Nacl have formed when i have added the hcl to bleach or when i add Na2s2o5 in thais mixture


----------



## Lino1406 (Jan 29, 2017)

Thiosulfate - Na2S2O3 - reacts violently with H2O2, means they act opposite


----------



## bastinado (Jan 29, 2017)

I see

I have H2so4 as result of adding Na2s2o3 + h2o2 

really i don't know what is the chemical form of my gold in this solution
May be AuNaCl or Auso4 or somtyhing more complex or what i have dropped is every thing ?!!!


----------



## Lino1406 (Jan 30, 2017)

Gold form in solution = Au+++


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Jan 30, 2017)

Heat to 80 °C keep in this temperature for 30 min then do a stannous chloride test.

Then if doesn't show anything, evaporate to 10% of the volume and do it again. (without boiling it's better)

If it doesn't show anything with the concentrate, you had too little gold to start with.


----------



## aga (Jan 30, 2017)

bastinado said:


> ... and bleach ?( 5% Naoh + 5% Naocl ) and then ... some of SMB ... add some of H2O2 , then some of sodium thiosulfate ...


Truly and Honestly, it is better to follow a Known-To-Work process than throwing in many reagents and hoping for the best.

The materials you start with are an unknown quantity/composition to begin with.

Add in more unknown weights of chemicals of unknown purity and what is the result ? 

Complete confusion in both the chemical mix and anyone trying to work out what has been formed.

I'm still trying to recover just the metals (not even the gold yet) from a similar mess i made Weeks ago.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jan 30, 2017)

I got a little more confused than clarified after those replies..

So, simply adding salt to an AR dissolve of gold will complex it to NaAuCl3?

In that case, what does the gold complex end up being when dissolving gold with bleach and hcl? And it is creating salt in the reaction, which would have sodium ions floating around in it, right?

And, what if a guy starts off with bleach+HCl and realises its too slow for thick foils, then adds a few mL's of nitric?

In these examples, is this sodium complex being formed? Or am I way off here?


----------



## goldandsilver123 (Jan 30, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> So, simply adding salt to an AR dissolve of gold will complex it to NaAuCl3?



Yes and No, and it's NaAuCl4.

When you have a solution of NaCl you don't have NaCl in solution, you have Na+ and Cl- and what's keeping them apart is water, which have a high dielectric constant and can separate ions pretty well.

A solution of aqua regia (in excess) with gold in it will be something like this:

*H+* + *NO3-* + *Cl-* + *AuCl4-* + *H2O*

If you add NaCl to it you will have this:

*Na+ *+ *H+* + *NO3-* + *Cl-* + *AuCl4-* + *H2O*

This is because all of the are soluble. If you heat it until dryness HCl will be lost as a gas, HNO3 too and you will end up with NaAuCl4 solid. 



> In that case, what does the gold complex end up being when dissolving gold with bleach and hcl? And it is creating salt in the reaction, which would have sodium ions floating around in it, right?



If the excess bleach is destroyed by boiling and you have excess HCl, if you dry everything you will end up with NaAuCl4.



> And, what if a guy starts off with bleach+HCl and realises its too slow for thick foils, then adds a few mL's of nitric?



If it's not added enough NaClO to give Na+ them it's a mixture os HAuCl4 and NaAuCl4.

But in solution if it's NaAuCl4 or HAuCl4 you have AuCl4- ion, that reduces normally with SMB and etc


If one uses Poor's man aqua regia, it's the same thing that's created if dried.

*3 NaNO3 (salt peter)* +* 6 HCl* + *Au* ->* 3NO2* + *AuCl4-* + *3 Na+* + *3 H2O* + *2 Cl-*

Or

3 NaNO3 + 6 HCl + Au -> NaAuCl4 + 2 NaCl + 3 H2O + 3 NO2

But since it's a aqueous solution it's as AuCl4- and can be reduced with normal reductants.

If I didn't explain clearly you can pmsg me, don't know if it's getting out of topic.


----------



## aga (Jan 30, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> I got a little more confused than clarified after those replies


Unfortunately the Chemistry is quite complicated, which is why Hoke's instructions are a work of sheer Genius - she knew loads about the specific details, then wrote a book that made it easy for non-chemists to do.

The specifics of the chemistry are well over my head for sure.

goldandsilver123 explains it well in the post above.

Details in things like "bleach is destroyed by boiling" end up with interim steps, as the bleach (NaOCl) disproportionates into NaOCl3 and NaCl in the process, which are free to react until all the water is boiled off.

As these are all ionic compounds, their components (e.g. Na+, Cl-) remain in solution with the water, as water is also partially ionic in nature.

It is pretty much off-topic, as it's delving into the Grey Magic, aka Inorganic Chemistry.

Dark Magic is Organic Chemistry.

Black Magic is Organometallic Chemistry where they extract all the gold from a rabbit in 2 milliseconds using just a potato and a 5 cent coin, _without the rabbit even noticing_.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jan 30, 2017)

Thank you guys for elaborating it so a simpleton such as myself can understand. :mrgreen: 

So, basically whenever there is a free Na+ in situ, it will bind to the AuCl4 from the HAuCl4, and then give the free H+ 
And then, if it were heated to dryness, it would leave a sodium-gold complex salt.

Which is a point that Lou made in another post, here-
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=24266
Where he says the decomposition phenomenon is retarded by the addition of salt.

All the pieces of the puzzle have come together for me now (at least I think so :roll: )


----------



## bastinado (Feb 1, 2017)

i think the best thing to do is to dry the solutions totally and then incinerate the salts

and re dissolve first in water

and the remain i would dissolve with acid and bleach but in moderate quantities


----------



## g_axelsson (Feb 2, 2017)

bastinado said:


> i think the best thing to do is to dry the solutions totally and then incinerate the salts
> 
> and re dissolve first in water
> 
> and the remain i would dissolve with acid and bleach but in moderate quantities


I disagree, incinerate a gold chloride solution would lead to losses of volatile gold chloride.

The first thing to do would be to make stannous and test the liquid to see if there are any gold in solution. If the liquid doesn't contain any detectable levels of gold then there is no need to try to extract any more gold from it, then it can be treated as waste and disposed properly.

Why not follow Goldandsilvers advice above and test what you have?

Göran


----------



## bastinado (Feb 2, 2017)

i Failed to dissolve tin in less then 30 % Hcl 

may i add H2O2 to the Hcl to dissolve the tin ?


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 2, 2017)

Why not heat it? Why add peroxide?

Dilute HCl will dissolve tin..


----------



## bastinado (Feb 2, 2017)

currently i use empty jam jars if i heat it will broken

at all i have check the solution with the hcl which i have tried to made and result is negative (if there is really enough amount of tin have been dissolved)


----------



## aga (Feb 2, 2017)

bastinado said:


> currently i use empty jam jars if i heat it will broken


If you heat them slowly, they will not break.

First, heat them in Water, or Steam.

That might be enough.

Use a cooking pan full of water, put that in a fire, put the jam jar in the water, making sure that it will not fall over.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 2, 2017)

Either that, or a sand bath would work for them.
Canning jars can handle heat, what they cannot manage, is extreme temperature changes.

You can find good lab glass for cheap online. Just dont buy off ebay. The first "kit" I got from there, had 12 pieces and 3 of them were damaged when I got them, and were very thin.
The knockoff stuff about burned down my garage.. Long story..

Anyways.
Its best to go to a reputable online vender.


----------



## aga (Feb 2, 2017)

Erm, almost ALL of my glass is from ebay/China.

It has All stood up perfectly to everything i have thrown at it, including high temperature (300C+) distillations and vacuum with absolutely no problems at all.

All bought from sellers like ben013.

On one occasion i bought 3 Erlenmeyers from a seller called Carter Scientific (USA) and they arrived with 1 smashed and the other two with air bubbles in the glass, so useless for heating. When i complained there was no chance of a refund or replacement. When i got a broken Chinese item, they sent a replacement for free.

Chinese stuff may have been bad in the past. 

All i can say is that all my glassware from China is excellent and does not break, apart from when i am clumsy, usually when i'm cleaning up.

Edit: Please tell us about the Garage !


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 2, 2017)

My stuff came from Seattle

When it arrived, I immediately took pictures of the 2 flasks and beaker that had flaws/bubbles. They sent me replacements for free, even footed the bill for shipping.

Coincidentally, the flawed ones are still alive and kicking.. Probably because I haven't used them in heated reactions and the like.

Dissolving ceramic cpu's in heated AR is hell on glassware, and I attribute that, to why the majority of my glassware got cracks, etc..


----------



## anachronism (Feb 18, 2017)

Actually Topher it's ceramic itself that's hard on the glass. When the two meet with any minor force the glass cracks. My only cracked glassware is from exactly this, usually from loading the broken ceramics prior to dissolution. 

Firemen in the UK ( and possibly in the US) used to carry a broken spark plug in their pockets because tapping the sharp white end on a car window shatters it instantly with minimal effort. It's almost explosive in the action. Vandals of olden days would walk down a road tapping car windows as they went.


----------



## Iggy-poo (Feb 18, 2017)

Adding H202 or exposing the solution to Air will Oxidize the Tin II, thus defeating the purpose of using SnII to detect Gold by reducing it to the fine purple Au(0).

On edit: 

The purple is a function of the particle size and the way it reflects light, not the color of Gold. Tin II is a strong reducing agent and is a poor choice for precipitating Gold, and leaving a purple gel in its place.


----------



## butcher (Feb 18, 2017)

So true, Iggy-poo.


----------

