# Acid peroxide



## Tammyjefferywilliam (May 7, 2015)

I have a couple of questions regarding the use of acid peroxide. First, I tried an experiment on using it on one ounce of gold plated pins at a ratio of three parts acid to one part peroxide. It bubbled good for a few hours but never got dark like it does with pcb's while absorbing copper. It seemed to strip some of the gold off but didn't dissolve the copper plating underneath. And then it stopped bubbling and seems to have stalled. I even tried pumping air into it but it still has no action and won't get any darker. And Im having another problem getting the copper back out of used acid after I use it with air to remove the foils from gold plated finger boards. You are supposed to put a stainless steel object in it and leav it 48 hours, but no copper will deposit. The acid eats the steel!


----------



## acpeacemaker (May 7, 2015)

Did you try a magnet on your pins before all that?


----------



## patnor1011 (May 7, 2015)

Tammyjefferywilliam said:


> I have a couple of questions regarding the use of acid peroxide. First, I tried an experiment on using it on one ounce of gold plated pins at a ratio of three parts acid to one part peroxide. It bubbled good for a few hours but never got dark like it does with pcb's while absorbing copper. It seemed to strip some of the gold off but didn't dissolve the copper plating underneath. And then it stopped bubbling and seems to have stalled. I even tried pumping air into it but it still has no action and won't get any darker. And Im having another problem getting the copper back out of used acid after I use it with air to remove the foils from gold plated finger boards. You are supposed to put a stainless steel object in it and leav it 48 hours, but no copper will deposit. The acid eats the steel!



- wrong choice of method for pins it will take days to accomplish. All pins will have to dissolve and gold will end up on the bottom as fine black powder. Maybe some foils but since you started with too much peroxide then some of gold dissolved and precipitated back as mentioned fine dark powder. Majority of that powder is now firmly stuck to undissolved pieces of metal.

- you are not getting copper out of AP. What for? One will do that when they want to discard solution. Saturate it with iron - that will push copper out. If you want to reuse used solution then use bubbler to rejuvenate it. AP will take a lot of copper in, I processed a lot of fingers in the same AP and I am still using it. 

- if your copper is not depositing it simply mean there is not much of it in solution so just keep adding iron inside, copper will be eventually pushed out as solution get saturated with iron. Forget 48 hours instructions. Everything will take its own time. AP is method which is very very slow.


----------



## Tammyjefferywilliam (May 7, 2015)

What is the correct method? If you mean electrolysis then let me tell you I have tried to find out how to do it, but nobody seems to want to tell me what to do with the black powder that builds in the sulphuric acid and how to retrieve the gold. I was merely trying an experiment to find the best method for me.


----------



## patnor1011 (May 7, 2015)

Tammyjefferywilliam said:


> What is the correct method? If you mean electrolysis then let me tell you I have tried to find out how to do it, but nobody seems to want to tell me what to do with the black powder that builds in the sulphuric acid and how to retrieve the gold. I was merely trying an experiment to find the best method for me.



Nobody need to tell you that. You can find all about it and more on the forum. Search and read - that is all it take.
I am not trying to be rude, you do not have firm understanding of AP solution and how it work that only mean you really need to spend more time reading and leave experimenting for later. 
If you want to process something you should know as much as possible about it in theory and so test to confirm and experience what you learned not the other way. If you know everything possible about process putting knowledge to use cant surprise you as you will be ready and know how to deal with any problem you may encounter. 

Time is all it take to get it right.


----------



## goldsilverpro (May 7, 2015)

Tammyjefferywilliam said:


> What is the correct method? If you mean electrolysis then let me tell you I have tried to find out how to do it, but nobody seems to want to tell me what to do with the black powder that builds in the sulphuric acid and how to retrieve the gold. I was merely trying an experiment to find the best method for me.


Here's how I would probably do it, if I only had a gallon or less of solution:

*(1)* Using a face shield and gloves for all of the following, pour all the solution into a suitable settling container, not too wide and not too short, preferably glass. A beaker is a good shape. If any solids remain in the original stripping container, rinse them into another beaker, carefully with a lab squirt bottle - when you mix the rinse water with the sulfuric on the sludge, it will get hot and could splatter.

*(2)* Put something underneath the back of the beaker to make it tilt towards you - that way the powder will settle on the front bottom of the beaker. Make sure the spout on the beaker faces towards you. Let the black powder settle. Often, the solution itself will be black and that makes it hard to see when it's settled. Turn off the lights and try shining a bright flashlight through the backside of the beaker. In any case, I would assume that, after settling overnight, it's settled about as much as it's going to.

*(3)* Slowly, steadily, and carefully pour the settled solution back into the stripping vessel (cell), trying hard to pour off most everything except the solids. When the solids start pouring off a little, stop pouring. The solution is then reused in the cell (after making up for volume loss with fresh sulfuric. Any solids accidentally poured off will be picked up next time.

*(4)* Estimate the volume of solids (sludge) and, into a separate clean container, add about 6-8 times this volume of water. Transfer all the sludge into the water by pouring and rinsing with a squirt bottle. Add the sludge from the stripping vessel that you picked up in step(1) above.

*(5)* After completely cool, filter it all through the same paper. I usually let it settle first, somewhat, and then carefully pour off the solution into the filter. When all the solution is filtered, I transfer the sludge into the same paper. I would then rinse this, say, 3 times. After the cake is just damp, I would transfer everything, including the paper, into a clean beaker.

*(6)* At this point, the paper contains most all of the gold, probably some copper, maybe some silver, and likely some dirt. The sludge must ultimately be dissolved in aqua regia (AR) under a fume hood. An intermediate nitric acid leach could be used but usually, just going straight into AR will work fine. First, cover the sludge with HCL and heat to about 140-150F (first sign of fumes or steam). When hot, stir with plastic or glass stir rod to slurry it a bit and then add a very small amount of nitric. This addition depends on the amount of sludge. For a very small amount of sludge, I'm talking a few drops. For, say, 50-100ml of fairly well dewatered sludge, I would add 2 or 3ml of nitric. The solution will fizz and foam. When the reaction dies down, give it a stir and add a little more nitric. Repeat until a small addition gives no reaction. Stop adding nitric. The whole thing is visual.

*(7)* Estimate the final volume and add 3 volumes of tap water and a couple ml of sulfuric acid to it. Stir. Filter until crystal clear. Transfer clear solution to a very clean beaker and drop out the gold with SMB.

Chris


----------



## Slochteren (May 8, 2015)

Tammyjefferywilliam said:


> What is the correct method? If you mean electrolysis then let me tell you I have tried to find out how to do it, but nobody seems to want to tell me what to do with the black powder that builds in the sulphuric acid and how to retrieve the gold. I was merely trying an experiment to find the best method for me.



I used this procedure found under
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=7093&start=80


----------



## rickbb (May 8, 2015)

Slochteren said:


> Tammyjefferywilliam said:
> 
> 
> > What is the correct method? If you mean electrolysis then let me tell you I have tried to find out how to do it, but nobody seems to want to tell me what to do with the black powder that builds in the sulphuric acid and how to retrieve the gold. I was merely trying an experiment to find the best method for me.
> ...



That's a great post to learn from. Also LaserSteve's web site has great videos on doing lots of the processes for the hobbyist/backyard refiner/e-scrapper.


----------



## bswartzwelder (May 8, 2015)

With only one ounce of pins, you might not get even enough gold to detect. I'm fairly certain it will be far less than 1 gram. Anytime you find black powder in an electrolytic cell, save it and wash it. That's your gold. Lasersteve has a great video on using an electrolytic cell on his web site.

You have many weeks, if not months, of reading ahead of you. Everything you need to know is on this website or in Hoke's book which is a free download from this website. Forget about YouTube videos. They are often incomplete or miss important steps. 

Also, I believe you double posted your original post on two different sections of the forum. Read the forum rules and you will see this is frowned upon.


----------



## jonn (May 8, 2015)

Great post Chris, I must commend you for always being helpful. Keep up the good work!


----------



## Tammyjefferywilliam (May 16, 2015)

You are correct that I did double post but be assured it was not intentional. But I do apologize nonetheless. And I do appreciate Chris who actually took the time to tell me straightforward what needed to be done. I have decided to stop processing pins for now and just work on other things. I have made some videos on YouTube to track my progress so far and you may check them out if you wish. It is under the channel name of tammyjefferywilliam. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated. I don't have a lab, I am not sure if I will continue in the pursuit of stripping gold from electronics. I was actually buying silver bars at the time and wished I had enough money to buy gold instead. I thought I would try and harvest some from junk electronics. Seemed better than throwing it away.


----------



## patnor1011 (May 17, 2015)

Do not put pins lodged in plastic in acid. Some of this plastic may turn in a goo which will be hard to get rid off unless you incinerate everything. Always remove pins from plastic holders. It may sound like a lot of work but it save you even more work later dealing with a mess of plastic goo combined with nitric dissolved tin goo.


----------



## Tammyjefferywilliam (May 17, 2015)

Got it. No plastic. Now let me ask one more question and I try my best to leave all of you alone. I used regular muriatic acid with air for seven days. When I siphoned it off it was green I reused it on pins by adding peroxide. It fissed and got hot. When I siphoned it off again it was dark brown, nearly black. I added more peroxide but it wouldn't fiss anymore. Is there a way to rejuvenate Acid-Peroxide? How can I make it dissolve more iron if I use a higher reactivity metal like copper to displace it?


----------



## butcher (May 17, 2015)

Tammyjefferywilliam,

You need to do some study to be able to understand the chemistry involved here.
First what you are incorrectly calling acid peroxide, should be correctly called Copper II Chloride (CuCl2).
Or Copper II Chloride leaching solution, or etching solution.

Copper being very near the bottom of the reactivity series of metals, and being below Hydrogen in that series or list of metals, we see copper will not displace hydrogen from HCl acid, so basically it will not dissolve in HCl without an added oxidizer, like air, oxygen, or some other chemical oxidizer like a nitrate...
HCl acid alone will not oxidize copper, or take electrons from the copper atoms, unless an oxidizer is added.

Hydrogen peroxide can supply enough oxygen to get some copper into solution with the HCl.
Air bubbled into solution will also contain enough oxygen to help the HCl acid take electrons from copper.

Once we get the copper into solution as copper II Chloride we can now dissolve copper with this solution.

In the copper II chloride solution it is not the HCl acid or oxygen (H2O2) that dissolves more of the copper metal, here in this reaction the copper is oxidized (dissolved in solution as copper ions as it gives up electrons, in doing so the Copper II chloride is reduced to Copper I Chloride gaining the electrons from the copper.

Here it is the copper II chloride that is the oxidizing agent, to take electrons from copper, oxidizing the copper metal into copper ions dissolved in to the solution.

Copper I chloride (CuCl) will not oxidize copper metal.
Now you need to rejuvenate, or change the copper I chloride back to copper II chloride before you can dissolve more copper, to do this we need to remove electrons from the copper I chloride to form copper II chloride again here we can use air, HCl and water as needed to oxidize the CuCl to CuCl2...

Once you add a metal higher in the reactivity series of metals higher than copper to your copper II chloride leach you create another chemical reaction a displacement reaction.
Example say you dissolve a Kovar, or iron containing metal in your copper II chloride solution, the iron displaces the copper from solution, here the copper ions in solution are reduced to copper, and the iron is oxidized in solution, as the copper gains electrons and the iron gives up those electrons.

By doing this you no longer have a copper II chloride to dissolve copper, you no longer have copper I chloride that can be rejuvenated back to copper II chloride with HCl, air or O2...

You now have an Iron chloride solution, with a different chemistry...
I have made many posts on copper II chloride and its chemistry.
Also several on iron chlorides and its chemistry.

I could spend most of my day ( or maybe even two or three days) trying to explain this chemistry again, but you will learn more from your own research into these subjects...

Many members have made many posts that will help you learn the chemistry involved, and how to use these solutions...

Laser Steve's web site he has a document that is also helpful to understand.


----------



## Tammyjefferywilliam (May 17, 2015)

IT must be difficult to answer the same questions over and over and for that I am sorry. But I do appreciate the few that take the time and have the patience to actually answer my questions--not just A + B = C but to actually EXPLAIN things to me. I do thank you all. And to all the rest, please be assured that I only post questions as a last resort as I I cannot find the answers elsewhere. I could not possibly have enough time to research every post on this forum to find the answers myself as I have a full-time job and full-time family including an autistic son that demand most of my attention. If I have the opportunity, I will recommend the forum to others, though, as I have learned much from the few times I have posted.


----------



## butcher (May 18, 2015)

If you ask a question and get an answer you can get a small piece of the puzzle, ask a hundred questions and you may get a hundred pieces of the puzzle, but you have not gotten anywhere in being able to put the puzzle together, as there are still another million pieces to that puzzle, many of which you are not educated enough in the subject to even know what questions to ask, to get those missing pieces.

When you study, and look for, or search for the answers, you not only find the pieces you were looking for, but you also find many more pieces you would have no clue that even existed until you come across them in your searching, you can now put that puzzle together and have many more pieces to your next puzzle, and with your experience in searching and study these puzzle's become much easier to work on all of the time.

I do not mind answering a question, or helping you learn, but writing a book or two to explain something is not easy, and beside I may not say things the best way for you to understand it, many time when I study something I read several different ways different people may explain the same thing, some I understand easily, and some I do not understand what they are saying that well, so by reading the same thing from different sources I get a better understanding, also some may explain details another may not this way if I keep studying the same question I can get many more details of that question answered, giving me a better understanding of it.

In a way answering your questions may be cheating you from finding a better understanding of the subject your seeking, you may feel if your question is answered there is no more to it, you will not gain the education to see you have just been given a very small piece of the puzzle, and not even know there are thousands of more pieces you need.


For example lets answer your question and see if it helps you get a better understanding of the chemistry involved.

Now let me ask one more question and I try my best to leave all of you alone. I used regular muriatic acid with air for seven days. When I siphoned it off it was green I reused it on pins by adding peroxide. It fissed (fizzed) and got hot. When I siphoned it off again it was dark brown, nearly black. I added more peroxide but it wouldn't fiss (fizz) anymore. Is there a way to rejuvenate Acid-Peroxide? How can I make it dissolve more iron if I use a higher reactivity metal like copper to displace it?


The black or brown solution is metal ions dissolved in solution, this could be copper or iron and other base metals depending on what the pins you dissolved were composed of. 
If you only had copper in the pins adding air or a tiny bit of 3% H2O2 the solution of brown solution of copper I chloride will change to a green color as the copper I chloride converts to copper II chloride, as long as there was some free HCl in solution.
But if the pins you dissolved were brass, Kovar or iron, the brown solution will not convert to copper II chloride with the addition of oxygen, so you cannot rejuvenate the leach back into a copper II chloride.

Now as far as the second part of your question:
Is there a way to rejuvenate Acid-Peroxide? How can I make it dissolve more iron if I use a higher reactivity metal like copper to displace it?


Yes you can convert CuCl to CuCl2 (what you are wrongly calling acid peroxide). 
CuCl + HCl --> CuCl2 + H(g)
This CuCl2 will dissolve iron, but in doing so it converts the copper II chloride into an iron chloride solution.
You have that last part backwards, Iron is a more reactive metal than copper. 
The iron will displace the copper from solution. You cannot displace iron from solution with copper.

Now if this is the only answer you have to the question you still do not gain much of an understanding of the process or its chemistry...

As far as learning more about cupric chloride or cuprous chloride, and or ferric or ferrous chloride, if you spend a little time in a search, you can find many posts like these that may give you a better understanding:
but even this will not give you the complete picture, so do not just study one or two posts keep searching more for those answers, the more you search the more you will find, giving you a bigger and more complete picture of the subject...

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=19838&hilit=ferric+chloride
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=20006&start=0

Tammyjefferywilliam, 
I am also very busy man with a lot on my plate, but I will take a little of my time to try and help you get started in learning this, but please do not waste mine and your time by thinking you can learn this from asking a few questions, to really learn this you will have to spend time studying and searching for answers, and I will try and help where I can, as will many of the many educated forum members here, which will also help you in your learning process, but if your not studying and doing your own homework, and research, you will just waste yours and everyone else's time, because you really will get nowhere in your education of these subjects.

Search and find the whole picture and all of the pieces to the puzzle.


----------

