# advice?



## Harvester3 (Nov 29, 2008)

Hey you all,
Well, I bathed an older LSI processor (the kind with the lugs on top) in a weak nitric solution. It reacted immediately with the gold, making salt in the process. The result is shown in this photo.
So, that's what I wanted, right?
Now, I tried again, but apparently my nitric solution was too strong, or too much heat, as it went brown/black, and appears to have eaten the base metals... Now what? I'll try to post photos of each.
Any help is appreciated. It took a lot for me to just attempt this. I'd be better off just selling scrap (if prices weren't in the tank!)
Thanks again.
Jim


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## qst42know (Nov 29, 2008)

The purpose of the nitric is to remove the base metal. However if the gold is finely divided as in low karat (thinly plated) it will be found as sediment in the nitric and is sometimes easy to miss. Or lose in filtering.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 29, 2008)

Thanks,
So, my first attempt which yielded the gold shown above was a fluke? 
My present project is apparently doing what it should in that case; dissolving all base metals. In that case, the gold will remain at the bottom of the container? I'm sorry, there's a ton of info on this, and it gets confusing for my middle aged brain :? 
Thanks again
Jim


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## qst42know (Nov 29, 2008)

Heavy plating will remain as foils but may not be all that was there. Watch for fine sediment in the solution you poured off as this too may be gold. Fine particles my require settling over night. The remaining foils and sediment will need further processing to be pure.


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## butcher (Nov 29, 2008)

and more gold and base metals inside the processors if you did not pulverize them.
remember you still have some salts of nitric on your gold and if adding HCl it would be enough to make a weak aqua regia and dissolve some of your gold, so if you are going to wash them in muratic acid they will need incenerated first, to rid the nitrates.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 29, 2008)

OK, slowly please. 
First, the first reaction I got, which is shown in the paper filter above, isn't what is supposed to happen with Sulphuric acid and potassium nitrate (didn't have any sodium nitrate) bath, right? It's supposed to dissolve all base metals, which apparently has happened in my second attempt.
So, if all is dissolved in solution, possibly including gold fines, how should I proceed? 
The solution is dark brown/blue. I know that doesn't sound good. I'm doing small, single items to determine the value of each, so no big loss, but it sure would be cool if the process was a more simpler one. I know, if it was easy...
Hey, thanks you all. Let me know if I can ever be of service.
Hope all had a Happy Thanksgiving.
Jim


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## qst42know (Nov 29, 2008)

I would rinse with hot water to try to get rid of the crystal salts in the filter. 

I would also add water to your original solution, allow it to settle for a while and pour off the top solution saving the solids on the bottom.

Working with such small amounts will add some difficulty. Small losses to filtering and transferring will be magnified. 

On small batches I usually work in one container pouring off the base metal solution. And perform a few water rinses in the same container. 

The solids and the last of the solution is dissolved together in AR or HCL+bleach, filter or pour only the solution into new container and dropped with SMB. The rinses are HCL, Water, Water, Amonnia, Water, Water.

Then repeat the AR or HCL bleach and SMB drop, and the rinse steps.


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## butcher (Nov 29, 2008)

I use sodium nitrate (not to sure if potassium would effect differently).

now you made a nitric acid solution, which disolves most but not all base metals. if there are no chlorides involved it will not dissolve your gold,but your gold can be very very fine also.

doing single processors to me would be harder than a batch an there is probably more chances of losses.

apparantly you chose nitric to rid your base metals (acid peroxide will work to), so the base metals that nitric can disolve did, but metals and acids make salts of metals.

the salts you see can be salts of acids and metals

so from here I would wash in hot water.let settle decant.

if I was using aqua regia I could dissolve my gold in it without incenerating(rid nitrate) it would disolve my gold and what small amount of metals left from nitric treatment.

but if I wanted to wash in Hcl, to rid the gold of base metals that HCl will attack, that the nitric would not, I would have to incenerate first (cook off nitrates), or if I wanted to dissolve my gold in HCl/bleach, the nitrates need to be removed. (otherwise it would form weak aqua regia and some of my gold would wash away too).

either aqua regia or HCl/ bleach work to disolve the gold.

to me aqua regia is faster but seems to be more problemsto precipitate from , if you do not get rid of the nitric or have too much base metals,

acid bleach alot slower but works very well and seems to me easier to precipitate from, but of coarse the oxides still need eliminated.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 30, 2008)

Thanks for the quick response.
So, couple of things; 
What's "decant"?
Since my home made nitric acid now carries both base metals and gold, what is the best next step from here? I remember from my gold mill days, it's best to remove as much base material as possible before commencing the concentration process, but it's late for this batch.
Wash in hot water. Does that dissolve the salts? 
I have to keep referring to my notes to keep from confusing the different materials such as Aqua Regia, etc. 
When I started fooling with this scrap electronics recovery I really thought I could maybe just concentrate with various screens/separators, etc and melt the cons down, hoping the goodies would naturally be on bottom of the lump.
Again, thanks for everyone's patience and guidance. I really used to be a much quicker study.
Possibly too many shots to the head [:~)
Jim


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## bmgold (Nov 30, 2008)

If you haven't done it yet, go to the books section on this forum and download the gold refining forum handbook and also Hoke's book. They are both free and well worth the time to download. Hoke's book is a little hard to understand until you read it and study the processes then it starts to make sense. If you read it enough you will realize just why so many people recomend it. 

Also, use the search feature on this site and use the "and" feature to limit the amount of results it brings up. 

Check any post by Lazersteve and go to his website. You have to sign in but the username and password are on the first page you come to. His site has lots of videos that show the processes and how to do them. It helps a lot to see something done instead of just reading about it. 

Stick with it and do some reading and you will figure it out.


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## butcher (Nov 30, 2008)

ok nitric alone will dissolve the most of base metals making them a liquid, not your gold.as long as no chlorides(like HCl) involved with the nitric.

wash will disolve the salts of base metals.
decant means to pour off liquid but not disturb the solid at bottom, this can be done by pouring carefully, but i prefer to use a suction bulb, or you can also cypher it off. the liquid now contains base metal nitrates, the powder will be mostly gold.
this gold will need futher processing to make it more pure.

if melting gold and base metals even a small amount they only mix in melt,you are right we are eliminating base metals to concentrate, and then trying to eliminate almost every bit of them to make that gold pure as we can. 
unless your goal is just to recover it and sell it to a refiner and pay him to do what you can easily do your self with a few more steps.

when doing a single chip it is such a small amount, you probably will have higher loss of gold than a larger batch, just like mining were you can only recover 98% with 2% loss in process, a ton is easier than a hand full and probably less loss due to what may be stuck to jar as extremely fine powder or lost in filters or left in acid or washes etc.
this small of a batch I would not filter it, as your losses would be higher with fine gold sticking to it, I would use suction bulb to remove liquid from powder fairly close to the powder then an eye dropper type tool to get most all of it, giving plenty of time for any fine powders to settle.
what type of refining process do you plan to use? 
and hokes book is good advice, 
this does kind of seem a little overwhelming but it does get a little easier, but like most other things I dont think anyone will ever learn everything about it, 
but if I dont learn something new everyday I might as well be brain dead.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 30, 2008)

Ok, what have I done now? 
I started a new nitric bath with 2 of the "nubs" which you see on some LSI, etc processors from Silicon Graphics units. Not sure why I did this, but I had a stainless steel strap which I put in the solution for a minute, and noticed material was attracted to it, so left it in overnight.
Now, I removed the strap, and the plated (?) material just slid off the stainless. The solution is green, the nubs are half as large as they were at first. 
What happened here, and was it good?
I'm working through Hoage, etc, as well as viewing Steve's fine tutorials several times. Lots of stuff!
Thanks again to you all.
Jim


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## butcher (Nov 30, 2008)

what you have done now is ,you observed the principles of chemistry and electroplating and how a battery works.these same type of principles we use to recover gold.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 30, 2008)

Hey Butcher,
Great! ??
But tell me what plated on the SS. Base? Gold? It's still working on a few nubs, and making brown stuff...
Thanks Butcher


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## butcher (Nov 30, 2008)

your solution is green, probably copper, nickel ect and of coarse gold, maybe other metals.
there is what they call electromotive series, activity series, there is an order to them they determine what plates to what and what dissolves in solution to precipitate another metal etcetera. read this and try and find more information on it also look at electroplating and battery theory.
www.chem.vt.edu/RVGS/ACT/notes/activity_series.html

you probably have a combination of several metals plating out of solution as you have also them going into solution dissolving, also some metals will plate out then another one will plate to that powder, not really refining anything thats at least how I see it. You are just removing the metals from your processor and adding them to the stainless steel any metal below chromium on the chart will try to plate to it, probably build up and fall off , some of the acid may dissolve away some of iron out of stainless pitting it enough for some of you values and metalsto stick (bond)to the stainless.
someone else can probably explain this better.


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## butcher (Nov 30, 2008)

Harverster if you are serious about recovering gold try and follow the proceedures, at least till you get an reasonable understanding of what happens, some thing we may do without knowing can make explosives and be pretty dangerous to us and others, expierimenting is great but we need understanding first, the above expieriment is just complicating your process, with metals from the stainless steel, nitric will dissolve some of it, and you are making more posibilitys of loosing values.
How would you like to process your material? read some on it and we will help you.
you will learn these principles and get your gold.


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## Harvester3 (Nov 30, 2008)

Thanks Butcher and everyone. The stainless steel thing was really just a fluke which raised curiosity when I saw the plating process take place so quickly.
I am getting the hang of it slowly. 
It's hard to stay on it and keep the bills paid at the same time... If gold prices would normalize it seems possible to even make some money on this sort of project.
Again, thanks much you all. 
Best,
Jim


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## butcher (Dec 2, 2008)

I cant say theres much money in processing electronic scrap, but it is a great hobby and education, and hopfully well break even


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## Harvester3 (Dec 27, 2008)

So, after several viewings of Steve's videos, and reading through the text suggested here, I've got some gold. 
Have a look.
The first photo shows some fine powder filtered from the wash. Is this the brown powder that's gold, or ???
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Jim


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## lazersteve (Dec 28, 2008)

Harvester,

I'm not for sure of the order of your photos, but the second one is obviously your gold foils. The first one looks like the residue commonly found when filtering the AP after the foils have been removed. It also resembles the residue found after filtering the dissolved foils from the HCl-Cl solution. 

In either case for the first photo of what appears to be gray powder, is likely a by product of the process and not your product. The gold powder should be light tan to coffee brown after adding SMB to the filtered HCl-Cl liquid.

Can you please clarify the order of the photos as well as the exact steps you used to produce the results pictured?

Steve


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## butcher (Dec 28, 2008)

Great job, little more processing and you will have a little button


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## Gold Nut (Dec 29, 2008)

butcher,
You stated that 2% of gold is lost due to very fine sediments or in filtering. Would it be possible to burn the filters and recover what's in them?
Gold Nut


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## butcher (Dec 29, 2008)

yes it is very important to save filters and have a stock pot, if you do much of this you will start to see they really pay off over time. as far as I know there is no such thing as 100% recovery in recovery processes, and also losses in refining processes, saving filters and having a stock pot can help recover some of these processing losses.
I cant remember how much Harold said he recovered from saving his solutions but it was a sizeable bonus maybe will get him to tell the story again?


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## Harvester3 (Dec 29, 2008)

Greetings
Thanks Butcher. Couldn't have gotten this far without your help.

Steve, the foils are from a couple of experiments; one was 70 fingers using your AP process, which works very well. 
I'm going to get an aerator for that process.
The other was using home made nitric placed in the freezer overnight, pouring off to remove any frozen portions. It was used on a group of heavy pins and 2 processors (Digital server CPUs with the 2 heatsink lugs)
The thing I like about nitric is, you never lose sight of the gold, although now I plan to use HCl/Cl to further concentrate the gold.
I liked the way the copper cage worked in your video. 
There seems to be a number of process' which one can use to get the gold; I'm sure some are better on certain types of material than others, and am continuing to study here for proper technique.

BTW, although I've seen many mentions of it, I haven't found the process for rejuvenating the AP mix. Could you please give us the 2 minute tour?

Also, I'm curious if anyone has developed a good procedure for whole motherboards; I've got some server boards which have a great deal of gold tracing, which I want to send to a friend who's been giving me advice on this project, but before I send the load I'd like to know if it's going to be a good load, or if the motherboards are more trouble than they're worth.
Thanks you all. I appreciate it.
Jim


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## Oz (Dec 29, 2008)

Steve has a wonderful PDF on his site that will give you all the technical details on AP. Just click on the link under anything he writes.


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## Harold_V (Dec 30, 2008)

butcher said:


> I cant remember how much Harold said he recovered from saving his solutions but it was a sizeable bonus maybe will get him to tell the story again?


It's not much of a story, but it was one hell of a nice savings plan. You must keep in mind, I refined on a full time basis for years, so the numbers aren't reasonable for anyone that refines as a hobby. 

My waste material yielded more than 200 ounces of gold, and roughly the same amount of silver. It also contained a large amount of platinum and palladium, in part because neither of them will precipitate from dilute solutions. I relied on my stock pot to recover traces, and did so for more than 20 years. The contents of the stock pot were included in my waste materials when they were processed. 

All of my waste material, which had been incinerated and stored, was fluxed and processed in the tilt furnace I built. There's a picture posted, below. In order to recover the values, I made a point of allowing silver chloride to be recycled with the wastes, to act as a collector. It was a long shot, but worked exactly as planned. 

An assay of the flux from the furnace operation proved to be so low in values that it was not acceptable for further processing by a commercial refining house that specialized in processing such low grade material. The flux recipe, being extremely aggressive and thin, contained no prills. I consider my experience to have been a total success.

Harold


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## butcher (Dec 30, 2008)

processing of whole boards capacitors and large metals and some components removed first, can be done but it gets complicated and time consuming, because of solders and base metals that end up in solution, they are worth it to a hobbyiest that is not doing it for profit.but it can be dangerous because of all the lead and other heavy metals, so an understanding is needed of how to deal with these safely.


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## Harvester3 (Dec 31, 2008)

Butcher
So, you have said understanding of the particular process' for PM removal of really nice looking boards? Let me know, ok.
Harold,
Do you use the same ingredients for a reducing flux or oxidizing flux, or do you vary ingredients based on the concentrates being refined?
Thanks you all.
Happy New Year.
Jim


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## Harold_V (Dec 31, 2008)

Harvester3 said:


> Do you use the same ingredients for a reducing flux or oxidizing flux, or do you vary ingredients based on the concentrates being refined?


I didn't consider this process to be refining, but reclaiming, instead. 

As far as fluxing is concerned, my attitude was that I had to reduce silver chloride to elemental silver, my prime objective. That, and a very fluid flux, so there would be no prills. Not being a chemist, I researched to the best of my ability, then made some decisions based on what I had read. I concluded that the flux recipe, below, would function adequately. I was more than satisfied with the results, the only complaint being the flux was extremely aggressive, and did severe damage to the furnace lining. While not pleased, it was not unexpected. When I compare the cost of building the furnace and the repairs that were necessary, to the yield of values, it was a no-brainer. Recovery costs, compared to the yield, were virtually zero. 

Hope this reply helps----just know that I used only one flux recipe for recovering values----all of which were mixed together, regardless of the source. 


(3) parts waste material
(1 1/2) parts silica sand
(3 1/2) parts soda ash
(1/2) part fluorspar
(2) parts borax 
water to make a batter similar to pancake batter. 

The "batter" was poured to shallow forms (ice cream bucket lids) and allowed to set, which took only minutes. They were removed and allowed to dry before introducing them to the furnace. They were struck in the center to yield pie shaped pieces, small enough to fit the furnace port. The furnace was charged from the exhaust port, for there are no other openings. 

By creating solids from the waste, there were no losses to dusting. That was one of the pleasant surprises of my experimentation. I did not expect the material to react as it did. 

Harold


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## Harvester3 (Dec 31, 2008)

Thanks Harold,
So, in recovering PMs from E scrap, and ultimately refining the con's, would you recommend this recipe as a good starting point for a flux?
Also, what method does one use to cleanse used flux from a crucible other than remelting? 
Thanks
Jim


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## Harvester3 (Dec 31, 2008)

BTW, nice looking furnace!


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## Harold_V (Dec 31, 2008)

Harvester3 said:


> Thanks Harold,
> So, in recovering PMs from E scrap, and ultimately refining the con's, would you recommend this recipe as a good starting point for a flux?


If you've followed many of my posts, you may know that I was not involved in processing e scrap, although I did run a small amount, particularly early on, before I found I had a serious business on my hands. 

With that in mind, I would suggest that the flux I used would serve quite well, but you might have to work out some of the ratios. If your feed had little or no silica, you may need more sand, or you may be able to reduce the amount of fluorspar, or even alter the ratios of borax and soda ash. Again, not being a chemist, it's not easy for me to understand the relationships between the constituents and how they interact with one another. I know that my feed was fairly high in silica, which is one of the important things you need to know. The source of silica in my waste was from incinerated furnace filters, which were used in the jewelry industry in their polishing systems. They have been incinerated and chemically processed for values, but you never get it all---so all of the residues from polishing wastes were a part of my waste materials. Assuming a person was to process incinerated boards, that would be a good source of silica-----plus the residual solder and traces would behave as collectors. 



> Also, what method does one use to cleanse used flux from a crucible other than remelting?



I can't think of a better method than to heat the vessel with fresh soda ash. In spite of the opinions that have been expressed in the distant past, I found that soda ash will reduce oxides and clean dishes perfectly well. I used to clean melting dishes with soda ash, returning them to the owners. It was a service I provided as a benefit for using my refining service. The cleaning process thins the dish, but it is perfectly clean when the operation is finished, and there's a nice button of alloy that was processed for values. All in all, a win/win proposition for both me and the customer. 

I would think that you could clean crucibles the same way, but you take a large piece of life from them when you do. Soda ash is very aggressive towards refractory materials, so you _may _be better served to use a flux recipe that does the work without creating a viscous slag. It will be correspondingly hard on crucibles, but you won't have to heat them for cleaning, only for use. That is a win/win proposition, too, for your slag won't contain prills if you've done your homework. Your recoveries will be better, with less work in cleanup.

If you don't have one, get a cone mold. It is nearly impossible to work with flux without one. 

Thanks for your comments on the furnace. I was quite proud of it, especially when I put it to work. 

Harold


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## Harvester3 (Jan 1, 2009)

Not to change the subject, but I have an old iron ladle that probably was used to pour lead in. 
Anyway, quite some time ago I attempted to reduce some material in it. It seems the melting point of cast is close to the same as the material I wanted to recover, and it bonded very well to the ladle. Any idea as to how or if it's possible to recover the PMs from this antique?
I didn't have a crucible or dish for melting at the time, and got impatient.
Silly mistake I know.
Thanks. Happy New Year you all.
Jim


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## Harold_V (Jan 1, 2009)

Harvester3 said:


> Anyway, quite some time ago I attempted to reduce some material in it. It seems the melting point of cast is close to the same as the material I wanted to recover, and it bonded very well to the ladle.


It need not be close to the melting temperature, and likely was not. The solvent power of molten metals is almost always dismissed by people---but that's a mistake. Low melting temperature elements (lead, for one) are used routinely to recover elements that have much higher melting points, with excellent results. The target elements need not melt, they can be _*dissolved*_. 



> Any idea as to how or if it's possible to recover the PMs from this antique?


Depends on the material involved. An example might be elements that are soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid, which cast iron can withstand. No simple answer to your question, but I'm inclined to think that you won't be able to recover without damaging the ladle. 

Harold


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## Oz (Jan 1, 2009)

Since you think this ladle has been used for lead in the past it is doubtful that you will ever use it for food. If that is the case then I would melt some lead in it by heating to a dull red heat. As Harold mentioned lead will dissolve gold and alloy with it, but I am reasonably certain that iron and lead will not. As long as the cast iron surface is relatively smooth I think you may be able to peal lead residue off. This was something I was actually put on to by Harold as well, that the US mint used to do something similar to recover gold from iron tools, and you could always test this on some scrap lead and cast iron first.

Correct me if my memory is incorrect or I am flawed in my thinking Harold.


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## Harvester3 (Jan 1, 2009)

Thanks Harold.
Near as I can tell and remember, there's about 6 grams of gold along with maybe 1.5-2 grams of copper involved in the situation. Also, now that I think about it, the ladle is iron, but I don't think it's cast. It really grabbed the gold well! 
Thanks for your help.
Jim


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## Harvester3 (Jan 1, 2009)

Oz, thanks for that info. I came across the ladle the other day and after looking at it, it probably has more than just what I mistakenly melted in it. If the lead trick works, we might recover some amount of silver as well.
Keep you all posted.
Thanks again
Jim


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## Harold_V (Jan 1, 2009)

Oz said:


> Correct me if my memory is incorrect or I am flawed in my thinking Harold.


The information I recall is where gold is separated from iron by using silver. If lead was to be used, one would likely have to revert to cupellation to eliminate the lead. Today, that isn't an acceptable process unless ample recovery measures for lead are employed. 

Blue gold is an alloy of iron and gold, which will readily alloy, although the properties of the resulting alloy leave a great deal to be desired. 

If memory serves, what I had posted was a method from separating gold from iron. Silver and iron do not alloy. Gold has a greater affinity for silver than it does for iron, so by melting gold contaminated iron in the presence of silver, the gold will, for the most part, migrate to the silver. When the lot is poured to a mold, unlike most scenarios where the metals remain mixed, there is stratification, with the gold/silver alloy on the bottom, then a layer of iron, then a flux layer. There would be a layer of sulfides between the flux and iron, assuming there are any sulfides present. 

I have experienced the operation when processing (in a furnace) material that was high in sulfur. All of the sulfide layers were re-processed when combined, with lengths of scrap steel inserted in the crucible. Values combined in the sulfide layer were liberated, yielding the values that were locked up. The nature of the sulfide that remained was changed considerably. It started out with a rather coarse grain structure, but resembled cast iron when the values had been liberated. 

Harold


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## Oz (Jan 2, 2009)

I wasn’t positive but with you mentioning it, it was silver. He has mentioned that he has considerable silver already in it but if he added more silver he may just make a greater mess. Somewhere on my computer I have the entire process but I think they would put the iron/silver with a little silica in a cone mold similar to what you use at the end of the day in the furnace. After they had it to a molten state they would shut down the furnace for the night to cool gradually to help stratification and in the morning they could usually strike it with a hammer and have it separate cleanly. 

Depending on how badly he wishes to save the ladle he may be able to grind it out with a grinding wheel on a dremel depending how hot he originally got the iron. The grindings could then be processed. 6 grams of gold is worth more than most iron ladles are.

I will try to find the document. My apologies for the inaccuracy, and thanks for the correction Harold.


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## butcher (Jan 2, 2009)

Somthing to think about, iron ( better if silicone involved) would be more resistant to concentrated nitric than silver, hot washing with brush just inner cup not keeping in contact with acids long may help, neutralizing between wash, this may wash out some of the base metals, and silver. then maybe a few hot HCl/bleach brushings to inner cup to get gold, might work.
Another thought a litharge flux borax, soda ash or washing soda and flour, or corn meal, if hot enough lead will pick up gold and if ground glass (silca) in flux maybe the Iron oxide of the tool may flake as glass tries to collect it and gold and silver picked up almagaming in the lead.
Or electrolisis cup as anode and a cathode held inside cup, Iron should hold up to concentrarted sulfuric somewhat,
these are only things you can ponder. on ways to try and get your values from the cast iron melting ladel.


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## Harvester3 (Jan 2, 2009)

Thanks you all,
Butcher, if I used the acid/bleach idea, assuming the gold is mostly in a lump attached to the ladle, how fast would it dissolve? I'm not too concerned about the ladle, although it's a pretty neat old piece. 
Would sulphuric react with the iron slowly enough to use the electrolysis system as you described?
BTW, what's a "litharge flux"?
Thanks again


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## Harvester3 (Jan 2, 2009)

also, as I don't have a furnace built just now, I'm using a torch and melting dish/crucible. Might make a difference.


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## butcher (Jan 2, 2009)

litharge or lead oxide is used in flux to almagam with gold and silver, usually used in assaying to collect the gold into a button of lead, the base metals go into the melted crushed glass as usually a brown red slag, the borax helps as flux and to help keep it to a pourable mix (liquid when hot), the flour can help base metals from oxides burning off as carbon dioxide, the washing soda helps keep alkaline, this may work to collect the values but temperatures will be the deciding factor, because you will need to get the flux hot enough to melt but not melt the cast iron, maybe bury bottom of spoon of laddle in sand and heat excess flux with torch till glass melts trying to cncentrate heat on flux, not laddle stirring and scratching bottom with stick or carbon, till cast iron red hot but not melting pouring off to flux letting cool, crush glass flux watching for bead of lead cuple the lead button in bone ash cuple to recover gold button. like I said only something to ponder.
cast iron with high silicone content in older times was used to distill concentrated sulfuric or concentrated nitric acid, the weaker dilute acid apparently attacks it more than concentrated acids.
also usually cast iron laddles have a heavy oxidized coating so maybe your metals are just stuck to this coating and not actually almagamed with iron, this oxidized coating and your gold may be able to be removed saving the tool, someone mentioned dremel tool.
with Hcl/bleach it will take surface of gold off pretty quick off glass gold items, brush helps, also high bleach oxidixer, but only surface layer each brushing, so if gold was thick this might not be best choice, but if fine layer it maybe,
electrolisis in concentrated sulfuric, maybe copper cathode and only using inner cup of laddle to hold acid, the iron as anode may work good as surface iron will also try to plate to cathode cleaning laddle, also if after gold is removed the iron could be retored by electrolisis,
http://www.rustyiron.com/engines/electrolysis/index.html
http://www.rutherfordcountyboys.50megs.com/custom4.html
sometimes you look at your options, what you have and try and decide the best approach to try
I was just spouting ideas to things (edit : to think ) about.


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## Platdigger (Jan 2, 2009)

Butcher, you said........"the flour can help base metals from oxides burning off as carbon dioxide"

I thought the reason for flour, or any carbon for that mater, was to reduce.....not oxidize.

Thus the carbon dioxide.......taking oxygen from the mix.
Randy


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## butcher (Jan 2, 2009)

the flour is carbon source, the oxygen and carbon combine to make CO2 gas, removing oxygen from melt that can combine with metals to oxidize them (like removing oxygen that would cause rust)if you did not have carbon source.
I dont know if I am explain this properly or not? 
(charcoal can work similar)
some metals will not melt together if you do not add carbon, the melt will burn or oxidize them(like rust them), but with carbon they will melt to metals, the carbon takes away the oxygen from melt making CO2 gas.

Platdigger maybe you can explain this to where it makes sense, I have a hard time with it.


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## Harvester3 (Jan 2, 2009)

Ok, so I do or don't add a carbon to the flux? I do want it to melt to the lead or silver, I don't want it to stick even harder to the iron ladle.
I do appreciate the help with my boneheaded mistake. I'd almost forgotten about it, and was slow to publish how stupid I was...
Thanks


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## qst42know (Jan 2, 2009)

The carbon source is beneficial if you start with litharge. It reduces lead oxide to metallic lead by forming carbon dioxide. It will clean other oxides as well. Clean metals combine quicker than oxides.

This is not a job for a small torch. Oxy/acetylene would be best. You can also use the torch to wash as much of the material out as possible.

If you can before you add the lead or silver, heat the ladle quickly to a red heat invert and knock as much of the material out into an old iron skillet.


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 2, 2009)

Were it me, I would never use a torch on lead. I want to see my great-grandchildren.


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## Harvester3 (Jan 2, 2009)

OK, you got my attention. What's up with using a torch on lead?


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## butcher (Jan 2, 2009)

lead fumes toxic and accumulate in body, just dont stick your nose in it you wont die tommorow, should be done with this in mind, out side with breeze.


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 3, 2009)

It's so easy to use a too hot torch. Lead is one of the easiest metals to evaporate. Lead fumes are very toxic. I'm as gutsy as anyone on the forum. I just try to eliminate stupidity.


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## Harold_V (Jan 3, 2009)

If you've ever converted lead to litharge, you'd understand the caution about fumes. I did that very thing a few times, always working in my fume hood. It's hard to imaging the volume of white smoke that comes from so little lead. It would be difficult to avoid without a fume hood, even with a stiff breeze at your back. 

Harold


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## Platdigger (Jan 3, 2009)

If he uses a carbonizing flame, and not an oxidizing one, he should not have much lead going to letharge. Still gonna want some type of fume exaust.

At least the ladle could be mostly cleaned off with the torch method. 
Then I supose if you have a big cupell............could allways throw the lead in that, and cupell it.
Randy


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## Harvester3 (Jan 6, 2009)

Thanks you all.
So, how about a quick tutorial on carbonizing vs oxidizing flames?
I haven't done anything to the ladle yet...


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## butcher (Jan 6, 2009)

oxidizing flame is hotter more oxygen, nice clean blue tip at torch.
http://www.tpub.com/content/construction/14250/img/14250_88_1.jpg


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