# Trouble with drying gold powder



## nwviking81 (Sep 1, 2011)

Hello everyone,This is my first post with a question, So far all my questions have been answered with a quick search of the forum. I have used AP to process fingers, then dissolved with Auric chloride all per steve's video's...so far so good , after dropping gold with smb I have washed powder as per instructions 3 times with water then Hcl then water again, here's my problem, I can't seem to get the precipitated gold to actually "powder", every time i try it it ends up just sticking to the glass i have had it in since dissolving . I tried heating slower , swirling constant but i just can't seem to find a combination that work's,not sure what i'm doing wrong?
I will also note that this is a small amount as I wanted to start out slow and small to learn the process's before i moved on to larger quantities.Thank's in advance. Hope everyone has a great day !

Gary


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## Geo (Sep 1, 2011)

force drying will cause the powder to adhere to the glass but its not just gold, any powder dried this way will do the same thing. even if you swirl the liquid till theres no liquid left when the material stops moving it will start sticking. try cutting the heat down just before all the liquid dries and push the material around with a stirring rod till it dries enough to move freely without any liquid and then gently heat the material back up after its loosened up. you can leave the stirring rod in to let it heat up so the material will fall off easier. any thats still stuck after awhile with the heat on just rub over it with the dry stirring rod should break it loose.


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## Palladium (Sep 1, 2011)

Another thing you might want to look at is if your glassware was properly cleaned before you started. I've had it happen. What do you clean with? Sometimes it's the small things that get you. Not saying that's it, just wondering.

Did you filter after you dissolved the foils? Was that container you filtered into clean?


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## samuel-a (Sep 2, 2011)

Use clean glassware with no scratches.
Last 3x water washes should be with distilled water.

Here is, just over an once gold powder.
Originally, this chunks of powder started out as one dry cake that broke apart easlly later.


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## butcher (Sep 2, 2011)

All good answers in posts above, maybe I'll add my pennies here,
If the gold or silver is more pure it seems not to stick as bad, (well rinsed of acids and other metals that may form salts), clean glassware is very important, lowering heat before dry, slow heating seems to work for me, I use an coffee cup warmer they look like a small hot plate, pay attention to the progress of the drying, when my powder is almost dry (if I did not notice and it dried hard I will give it another water rinse to wet it) I will pick up jar of almost dry damp gold, with my right hand and bang the bottom of the jar against my heal of my left hand, twisting the jar around with the right hand, this will usually make the gold form a ball or many small balls inside the jar, this ball will dry faster as it gets surface area off of the glass, and can dry further without heat if you choose.


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## nwviking81 (Sep 2, 2011)

Thanks for the advice, I will try warming slower this evening when i get home and see if that works, all the glass jars i have used i clean first with a little Hcl then distilled water,I filter everything with coffee filters(which i also am saving). Will let you know how it goes tonight and i can include some photos also.
Again thanks for the help you guys a great !


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## Harold_V (Sep 3, 2011)

It should be noted that very small volumes of gold are unlikely to dry without sticking. In such a case, a plastic policeman can be used to free the gold. That should be done before the vessel is heated beyond the boiling point, to avoid melting the policeman. 

You must have enough gold present to form the balls that were mentioned, or that will clump up and form a common mass. That mass, in turn, will wipe the thin layers of gold from the vessel as it is swirled. The vessel should be scratch free and scrupulously clean, as has already been mentioned. Scratches tend to form solidly attached gold. 

Harold


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## nwviking81 (Sep 3, 2011)

As expected I knew you guys would have the answers,I did finally get it dried without so much sticking, I did however have to you my glass stiring rod to push it up into the pile in the picture, this is of course as Howard mentioned because I had such a small amount to begin with, but I wanted to try my hand at this before I threw in all I had. "Plastic Policeman" now that's a good one,of course I had to search to figure out what the heck that was.I was wondering if I could use my regular spatchula and cut it to the size and shapes that were mentioned ? Anyway, for now I have some more foils that I am going to dissolve and will be adding this powder to those so hopefully I will have more material to work with next time,thus making the drying process a bit easier ( I Hope). I can't say enough how much all of your help is appreciated. Thanks again...
Oh, next up after that will be melting....should be interesting


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## qst42know (Sep 3, 2011)

I keep a small stiff brush for gathering the powder. It's sealed in a bag and used for nothing else. Some day I'll have to incinerate it to recover what traces may have gotten stuck.


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## Harold_V (Sep 4, 2011)

nwviking81 said:


> I did however have to you my glass stiring rod to push it up into the pile in the picture


I avoided that procedure because of the potential for scratching the beaker. Thus my admonition to use a plastic policeman. 
Early on, I concluded that beakers used for precipitation should be absolutely free of flaws. I used them strictly for precipitation, then they were demoted to being used for other processes, being replaced with a new beaker, as required. Prior to that, I had resorted to using AR to remove traces of gold that accumulated in scratches. Amazing how fast we learn to avoid problems. 

When you melt your bead, make sure it's in a new dish, and it has been seasoned properly. Avoid adding free borax, especially before the gold has agglomerated. If you use too much borax, the beads will be very difficult to gather in a common mass. 

Harold


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