# For Electrolytic Recovery of Heavy and Precious Metals



## PreciousMexpert (Jun 26, 2009)

Here is something I found that was interesting
They say it is patented

http://www.preciousmetals-pmpc.com/


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## 4metals (Jun 26, 2009)

The products you've listed are made by a guy named Randy Epner, he has made these units to selectively plate out precious metals from liquids dragged out of plating baths or from cyanide bombing solutions (the bombardier). He is the son of a plating engineer who owned Cohan - Epner which was in Brooklyn NY. From the descriptions on the website he has gone back to his plating bath roots to use his technology to purify plating baths by selectively electroplating out impurities on to his high surface area cathodes, probably by running at a current density which will, for example, plate out more copper (the impurity) than nickel and thus clean up the bath.


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 19, 2009)

I am actually in the market for one or more of these babies. I've been looking at this as a way for us to recover the values in our waste liquid. We produce about 55 gallons every 10 days.


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## goldsilverpro (Dec 19, 2009)

I would be very surprised if it will work for things like copper nitrate or solutions with a variety of mixed metals. It is marketed to the plating industry and I think it is meant to be used on typical systems found in a plating shop - copper sulfate, nickel sulfate, cyanide gold, etc. In other words, metals in a matrix that would allow plating.


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## nickvc (Dec 19, 2009)

Scrapper-aw- said:


> I am actually in the market for one or more of these babies. I've been looking at this as a way for us to recover the values in our waste liquid. We produce about 55 gallons every 10 days.


I,d suggest large settlement tanks with a plastic tap about 2 inches from the bottom through which you can control the flow of waste solutons.Redrop your solutions and allow to settle for 24 hours then assay your solutions and dispose of if barren or run it through a tank with scrap iron turnings which should drop the copper and any precious metals out of solution saving the sludge to be sent for recovery when you have large volumes,or set up a copper cell and recover it yourself.


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 19, 2009)

Well I'm going to give this thing a try. I actually called and spoke with the inventor, Randy, and explained what we were doing and he said it would work. I'll have 30 days to check it out, and if it doesn't work it will be returned. I have about 7 months worth of waste lquid to process. :shock:


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## nickvc (Dec 20, 2009)

Refining machines and or recovery sytems are nothing new ive come across them a few times over the years,but ive never found one yet that recovered all the metals present from scrap or solutions despite claims to the contrary and if GSP has doubts over this i would certainly do your research before purchasing this. Maybe this is the one that works 100% ,but assays of the treated solutions would be a must for me and if they still contain values what next? No system is perfect and if your doing volume refining as some of the members are or have been this is always an issue, id do more research into how to recover as much of the values as is commercially viable.


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## Harold_V (Dec 20, 2009)

nickvc said:


> but assays of the treated solutions would be a must for me and if they still contain values what next?


Unless one is concerned about the platinum group, I question what might be left in solution (precious metals). Unlike the platinum group, it's possible to achieve what is, for all practical purposes, 100% extraction of silver and gold from our common solutions. I'm curious what case one might consider otherwise. If all values are not being recovered, I'd question the methods being employed. 

Harold


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 20, 2009)

Harold_V said:


> If all values are not being recovered, I'd question the methods being employed.
> 
> Harold




We also have an in-house assay lab that's running on average 100 samples a day through an ICP Spectrometer. We employ the AR method on our samples and then dilute a small sample of the digested sample into another diluted volume of AR then test a sample of the dilution. The value of those samples is relatively small, but definetly worth recovery efforts. The waste liquid from the digestion of those samples and the waste liquid from the refining area are comingled. We used to ship it out for processing and get a return of about $1200 per 55 gallons on average. We know what the margin is on that type of refining operation. We want to keep it in-house.

So we store all of our waste liquid for now. This would be our "stock pot" on a grand scale. Once every month or so we could fire up the Gold Bug in our storage tank. After a day or two depending on the quantity of liquid and the assy thereof, we continue on to evaporation. We have plans to use an evaporator and condenser to reduce the volume of waste liquid and concentrate any values into a manageable volume of liquid. Once it's reduced in volume we can reprocess it for any remaining values. 

Our overall goal is to take in all sorts of scrap and sell only pure metals and throw away only valueless inert garbage. We pride ourselves on recycling as much as we possibly can. 

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## butcher (Dec 20, 2009)

over a thousand dollars,and after they charge for recovery, that to me sounds like a healthy stock pot, I think would try Harolds advice and slim down that stock pot.


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 20, 2009)

butcher said:


> over a thousand dollars,and after they charge for recovery, that to me sounds like a healthy stock pot



That $1200 is only slightly over 0.2% of the value of the material that we process to create that same waste liquid. I would say that's pretty complete for a medium scale recovery system. And think about how much is in the assay samples--which as I said are stored with the refining waste acid. We weigh 0.1g to 0.2g per sample and it's all digested. The math says this is the most cost effective way to recover those sample values and reduce the hazardous waste volumes.

Trust me, we try to produce as little waste liquids as possible. But we are a production facility and some of the volumes are big. And we don't throw anything away unless we determine it is valueless and inert. :mrgreen: 

I mentioned in another thread that our company is a growing refinery. This year we are upgrading and expanding our processes. 

Scrap


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## butcher (Dec 20, 2009)

as a backyard refiner and doing small volumes, I cannot make to you a suggestion, although, from reading Harolds advice for years, and studying these things for longer, I feel some how that you can improve, with the help of the people here, who have also processed large volumes.
I can be wrong,often am, but my gut feeling says not, I know you are processing large volumes and need production, so you may not want to change some of your steps or technique, but who knows there may be better ways? 

if'n ya want me to shut up tell me sometimes I type too much.

man 55 gallons used acid and that much metal to boot, there aint no way I would call that waste :lol:


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## Palladium (Dec 20, 2009)

Since you just want to destroy your waste stream so you don't have problems with environmental issue, and two you just want to recover any metals of values for later re-refining and separation.

What would give you 100% metal recovery and allow you to discharge the waste stream into a normal sewer ?

How about S.C.W.O. ?

Kill two birds with one stone. Destruction and recovery.

I've read that it takes as little as 1500 watts to kick the process off. Then the excess heat is generated from the oxidation process to power the reactions. The only other parameter is pressure. Very efficent process as far as energy consumption. The cost is not in operation but in equipment outlay.

Just a thought.


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## 4metals (Dec 20, 2009)

It would be interesting to know the PM content of your spent refining wastes and your lab sample digestions used for spectroscopy. I would assume your samples to actually be more concentrated. If that is the case I would process them separately as recovery from the more concentrated samples will be more efficient than the lower concentrations of either the co-mingled wastes or the refining wastes alone.


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## butcher (Dec 20, 2009)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=S.C.W.O.+%3F&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Hmmm


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 20, 2009)

butcher said:


> I know you are processing large volumes and need production, so you may not want to change some of your steps or technique, but who knows there may be better ways?



Butcher, I am indeed looking for ways to improve our process. I joined this forum to learn from the group and contribute in any way that I can. I welcome all comments.

And as I said in my last we are upgrading our processes this year. That means implementing new procedures with new equipment and thinking way outside my box. I've been working on a 10' bench with five 22l flasks for reaction vessles and four 3l buchner filters for the past two years. I have learned a great deal and my processes have been verified by two outside assay labs in blind studies. We are talking about moving to quite large reaction vessles....several hundred liters in volume, and a series of customized filter presses. We want to be able to process several hundred pounds of material each week, and do it cleanly and effeciently.



butcher said:


> if'n ya want me to shut up tell me sometimes I type too much.



Never! If you haven't noticed, I tend to be a bit wordy myself. :lol: :lol: :lol: 

And let me throw this out there: :idea: If we are going to be producing used up AR with no values in it, what are we to do with it? Do we pay to have it taken away by hazardous materials handling companies? That will cost thousands!

Is there not a greener way? :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: I propose to recover the metal from my used AR, (from the assay lab as well as the refinery), and then evaporate that liquid through a condenser to reduce the volume then recover any values left behind. As a byproduct we will be recycling the water from the condenser for use in our process anywhere we need distilled water. 

This is what I'm talking about. :mrgreen: 
http://www.poly-products.com/condense.htm 


Scrap


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 20, 2009)

4metals said:


> It would be interesting to know the PM content of your spent refining wastes and your lab sample digestions used for spectroscopy. I would assume your samples to actually be more concentrated. If that is the case I would process them separately as recovery from the more concentrated samples will be more efficient than the lower concentrations of either the co-mingled wastes or the refining wastes alone.



You know, we haven't looked at that in quite a while. I can take a look and see. {something else for me to do this week} 8) 

We actually did process four gallons of that assay lab waste right after we started our chemical refining. I think we determined at that time though the liquid had value, it wasn't concentrated enough to warrent the cost of labor and materials to recover it that way. The key would be to reduce the volume. And then I saw the GoldBug and the evaporator. The rest is in earlier posts. :mrgreen: 



butcher said:


> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sour ... f&oq=&aqi=
> 
> Hmmm



Hmmm indeed. Lots of interesting stuff in that search!


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 20, 2009)

Palladium said:


> I've read that it takes as little as 1500 watts to kick the process off. Then the excess heat is generated from the oxidation process to power the reactions. The only other parameter is pressure. Very efficent process as far as energy consumption. The cost is not in operation but in equipment outlay.
> 
> Just a thought.



And the more I read, the more I like it. Thanks Pd!


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## 4metals (Dec 21, 2009)

Atmospheric evaporators will be quite a disappointment on acid concentrates. They are best suited for high water (electroplating rinses) streams, the salt you generate when you drive off the water (after neutralization) is huge. 

For your waste think of cementation with copper, slight neutralization (to pH1) and cementation of base metals with iron, followed with raising the pH over 3 with mag ox to drop the iron sludge in a filterable sludge (filter press).and liquid discharge if it meets standards. The iron sludge is a hazardous waste for having hauled away. This works for a lot of shops and you collect all of your PM's for recovery.


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## Palladium (Dec 21, 2009)

Scrapper-aw- said:


> Palladium said:
> 
> 
> > I've read that it takes as little as 1500 watts to kick the process off. Then the excess heat is generated from the oxidation process to power the reactions. The only other parameter is pressure. Very efficent process as far as energy consumption. The cost is not in operation but in equipment outlay.
> ...



http://www.environmental-expert.com/resultEachArticle.aspx?cid=1069&codi=25&lr=1&word=gas%2Btreatment


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## Scrapper-aw- (Dec 21, 2009)

Palladium said:


> http://www.environmental-expert.com/res ... Btreatment



Now I'm even more curious.......... Thanks Pd.

Scrap


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## Palladium (Dec 22, 2009)

If you would like more information I THINK i have a cd somewhere pack full of information on the subject.


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