# Mixed metal gold bar recovery issues.. HCL+H2O2



## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 17, 2019)

Hi to everyone,

thank you for a very informative forum. i have a great deal to learn for you all.

Please excuse my current lack in expertise, i am just starting out and getting my head around things. i have always been a practical learner rather that an academic so basic steps and advice in times of woe are more or less my bread and butter.

If not too much trouble can someone link me in to the appropriate thread if it has already been covered in entirety. ( im sure it has )

My Process Thus Far..

I was drawn to some mixed metal supposed melted CPU pin ingots.(i'm sure this was my first Rookie error in a series to come)

I had a total of 3kg of this unknown mixed metal ,

I added them to a 25L empty plastic container to which i added approx 10L of 36% HCL followed by a grand total of 10L H202 10%, the H2O2 was added slowly over the course of a few week to keep the solution deep emerald green.

If the solution turned black/deep brown with no trace of green I added more H2O2 up to the 10L mentioned (Knowing i had used far too much anyway)


1 week ago i added a Fishbubbler with a mineral diffuser which is bubbling away nicely and metal is still clanking in the bottom when i agitate the container.

i can see no gold floating in the solution but it has returned to a cloudy black colour which upon filtering a small test portion is deep brown leaving a dark grey/black sediment in the filter.

( i am awaiting some stannous chloride to be delivered presently) 

I added this black precipitate to fresh HCL and way too much bleach (whoops)
the precipitate appeared not to dissolve but i still then proceeded to filter.

i am using milton (2% sodium hypochlorite)

the filtrate was a yellow brown colour..

no amount of SMB would cause a drop or change the liquids colour.. 

currently it is sitting on a hot plate trying to drive off some more chlorine assuming there is gold to be had from this solution and hoping it eventually drops.

.

1) is the black precipitate normal and if so what is it? ??? copper??

2) once a solution has had SMB added can it be added to a general slush pot for re-refining in any way? does the chemistry allow for this to occur?

3) as mixed metal the presence of tin and ferric metals are most likely a certainty ,will this ruin any chance of getting the gold out?

I am just starting out, this is a hobby, done outside in the garden shed with lots of ventilation and appropriate Personal Protective Equipment has been used..

unfortunately due to the area i live in i am unable to heat such quantity of solution (even in small batches) to drive reactions or to evaporate excess h20, due to the nature of chemicals used and the evolution of noxious gasses.

Don't fancy irritating my neighbours with fumes and complaints being filed.

any help would be useful even if it is just a few redirects.

Additionally i know i am new, i am keen to learn, i know i have made mistakes but i wish not to repeat them.

i have 500g mixed cpu's and 2kg of assorted ram chips i wish to refine in future but i dare not do a thing with them until i get my practice spot on and had a few successful runs.

Thank you all.

Owen


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## butcher (Nov 17, 2019)

Owen, Why do you believe there was gold in this melted bar, how did you test for the gold content?

It sounds like you have a handle some of the concepts of using the cupric chloride etching process and have somewhat of an understanding, although it still sounds like you have quite a lot to learn, (overuse of the oxidizer for one), I am unsure how to answer your question, I do not know where to start there are so many things we could cover.

Typing keywords in the search engine will lead you to thousands of posts that cover the subject in-depth, you can also refine your search using authors to help narrow the search...

Some times it is better to focus on older threads on the subjects as many times the process was discussed in more detail, (after someone tries to explain something for the millionth time he leaves some details out or figures that has been discussed to death and everyone know that anyway), and then study the more recent threads, over the years the forum has revised many things or the way we may do or see something, as we have learned as a group to improve some of these processes...

If you had a specific problem maybe I would know where to start, your question is too broad for me maybe another member can help answer it.

I doubt you will find much if any gold in the bar how did you test and verify there was any gold, to begin with?
I seriously doubt you will see any gold foils floating as this was an alloy as far as I understand.


Although it does sound like you understand some things about these processes, I would not start working on a higher grade scrap until I gained a better understanding of the recovery and the refining processes better than you do now.

Cupric Chloride etch
http://jimlaurwilliams.org/projects/seychellePaper/index.html


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## Williamjf77 (Nov 17, 2019)

I’m no veteran here but I would think it would take an eternity to dissolve a 2kg bar in Copper chloride. 

Watch sreetips video on YouTube and see what he got in those bars and how he did it. I’m pretty sure he started by melting into shot.

Best choice in my opinion is fish that bar out if it’s still pretty big, wash it and neutralize it and sell it back on e bay.

Then get some ram fingers or something easy to process.


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## butcher (Nov 17, 2019)

I almost agree with Williamjf77 and his good advice, except for selling bronze on eBay claiming it is for gold recovery.

I would not resale the bar, but I would use it, in the stockpot, or to gain weight in my scrap brass pile, and use it as reminder and educational experience in buying gold, or scrap, that I should study so that I know what I am doing before I jump out blindly doing things.

Starting on an easier or simpler material like memory fingers, limiting the problems encountered with other metals, it will help you learn the processes faster, it will also be easier to tell when you overuse the oxidizers...


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## rickzeien (Nov 17, 2019)

I think the advise to start we with a higher grade of material is the best way to proceed. 

If you are determined to proceed with this bar you may want to use a copper cell. 

Here is a video outlining the process. 

I would advise use of gloves, safety glasses and a well ventilated space. There are excellent post in the safety section. 

Be aware the cost will probably be more then any gold recovered (if any)

*edited to add last paragraph*

https://youtu.be/kQSymhh8HcU

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## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 17, 2019)

Thank you for the quick response, to be honest I have no certainty of gold content until I get the stannous chloride.

The mixed metal came as varying size bars : nuggets from 50g up to 300g per piece.

They are all showing signs of dissolving with a couple bits showing what look like gold flake that although melted in to a bar have kept their original shape(very odd and shimmery). The only other info I had wad good eBay feedback and a few reviews stating it contained the expected gold content per weight for melted gold plated computer pins.

I’m keen to see these bars completely dissolve so I can see if they genuinely contained any gold. And because I’m a bit stubborn. 

I’ll start over at the same time with a small amount of ram chip/board to try and float the gold off , then be more cautious with the hcl bleach mix, this time only adding the bleach drop by drop and waiting to see if the foil dissolve rather over saturating with the hypochlorite and causing issue with the SMB drop.

Thank you for your help, I’ll post back if I have any success with the big black batch mess.


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## kernels (Nov 17, 2019)

Out of interest, how much did you pay for the bars ? Absolute best case scenario is that you have around 12g of Gold there. But probably closer to half that depending on what actually went into the bars. Now, if you have a look at the giant bucket of poison you have, you have to wonder whether it is worth 220 Pound.


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## kernels (Nov 17, 2019)

Also, don't just start with a small amount of Ram fingers and make more poison. 

It is practically impossible for someone who is not experienced to work with less than 1g of Gold. That means that you need to have at least 250g of close cut fingers to start with.

As mentioned above, Cu(II)Cl leach (AP) will take a long time to consume those bars, and as probably mentioned above, you won't see Gold flakes from the bars, what little Gold there is will be in the form of fine black powder.


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## patnor1011 (Nov 17, 2019)

kernels said:


> Out of interest, how much did you pay for the bars ? Absolute best case scenario is that you have around 12g of Gold there. But probably closer to half that depending on what actually went into the bars. Now, if you have a look at the giant bucket of poison you have, you have to wonder whether it is worth 220 Pound.



I would think that nobody will melt high yielding pins like pins from some medical, aviation or military equipment. They can be sold for high price right as they are. 
Most of "melted pins" bars like 99 out of 100 never seen any pins and are just brass. There may be few "honest" (taken with a kilo sized pinch of salt) "melted pins" bars sellers who really do melt some pins but even then result will be a complete disappointment as computer pins do not have much of the gold on them anyway.

I did pins. They were very good pins tiny small pins from laptops which are many times better feedstock than desktop computer pins due to size difference. I mean that there are many times more pins in a kilogram of laptop pins compared to a kilogram of desktop pins. That means much more surface area and plating. 

I also did "melted pins" bars from a person who really melted pins and I hated every minute of doing them. To make a long story short I spent a couple of days chasing gold which was so little it would not pay even fraction of a cost of chemicals not to mention my time. 

*IF* there were any pins in your 3 kilos of "melted pins" bars which will be much better to be called "fools gold bars" and *IF* you are incredibly lucky and they were laptop pins or something like that you may end up with up to 5g of gold. With say mixed desktop pins you look at recovering about 1-2 grams from your lot. 

I understand that you do not want to believe this after most likely spending quite a lot of money for these bars but it is what it is. Many people buy them and a lot of them eventually come here looking for advice as they cant find any gold in their precious bars. So far, nobody recovered anything to make it worthwile to pay any money for them.

Can you post a link for us to see who did you buy your bars from?


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## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 18, 2019)

HI guys and gals,

i'm not really all that fussed about if there is any gold content in these bars, i fully understood once i started dissolving them, that there was likely little or no gold in these, i just like to see a process through from start to finish.

i have 2.2 kg of ram chips, approx 100 chips / viable fingers for refining.

was going to chuck the lot in a bucket of hcl to remove any solder, keeping this hcl separate and reused for future pre recovery treatment etc before doing an hcl h2o2 recovery.


i probably spend's around £100 on the unknown mixed metal bars, steep learning curve, that's why i went for CPU's and RAM for the next attempt.

Keeping my eye out for Ceramic CPU sellers, BTW never go on Alibaba.com and trust anyone trying to sell them there, luckily its not my first rodeo with scammers so didn't get stung.

i did however succumb to impulse purchase for the bars, not to repeated for sure.

if manage to get to the end of the first process and deffo no gold i'lll file for PayPal refund but i don't hold any hope of that actually being successful.

all rookie errors that i won't repeat, so far for me this is more about succeeding at a process than making money back, once i have the processes mastered then ill think about making a few shekels back

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/daryar - more recent negative feedback so more suckers out there like me. - edit looks like he closed up shop no further items for sale, from what i see he has multiple accounts with different names all selling the same rot!

thanks again all


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## Shark (Nov 18, 2019)

Here is how I treat bars of mixed copper, it also works pretty good on those low grade pins. 

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=28410&start=30#p299677


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## g_axelsson (Nov 18, 2019)

I had a couple of "gold drops" made from high grade pins... I know since I made them myself in the pre-forum days when I was planning to use electrolysis of copper to get the gold in the sludge. I gave up that experiment quite fast and put them in the stock pot. Last time I cleaned out my stock pot there were no trace of those blobs so I finally got the gold back after 20 years.  

If you have a stock pot and not too much of gold drops then it's the proper way to recover the gold in them.

Göran


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## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 30, 2019)

Just a quick question.

I know it’s not ideal, but as my access to chemicals is limited would
It be possible to recovery gold with hcl h2 o2, or plain hcl from rolled gold jewellery? 

I know it will contain mixed metals, lead , copper , steel etc 

Many thanks 




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## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 30, 2019)

Or would just chucking rolled gold or 
Plated jewellery straight in hcl+Cl and then refine multiple times work? 


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## FrugalRefiner (Nov 30, 2019)

Owen_Lindsay said:


> I know it’s not ideal, but as my access to chemicals is limited would
> It be possible to recovery gold with hcl h2 o2, or plain hcl from rolled gold jewellery?


I'm not sure what you mean by "hcl h2 o2". Are you talking about HCl and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), or are you talking about HCl, hydrogen gas (H2), and oxygen gas (O2)? I know that may seem pedantic, but chemical formulae are very important as they can mean very different things.

If you mean HCl and hydrogen peroxide, yes it will work to dissolve the base metal core of gold filled and rolled gold jewelry, but it will create a lot of waste.



> Or would just chucking rolled gold or
> Plated jewellery straight in hcl+Cl and then refine multiple times work?


Assuming you mean HCl and Clorox, I doubt you will succeed. Clorox has sodium hypochlorite dissolved in water, along with sodium hydroxide to help keep the sodium hypochlorite in solution. As you add the Clorox to the HCl, the sodium hydroxide is neutralizing the HCl, so the acid becomes weaker with each addition of Clorox, and eventually you end up with a solution of salt water and dissolved metals. Again, you would create a vast amount of toxic waste. HCl and Clorox is suited to dissolving gold foils from electronic waste like fingers where the foils are extremely thin, or powders from a sulfuric cell or when rerefining gold after a first drop.

Dave


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## Owen_Lindsay (Nov 30, 2019)

Cool, thanks guys.

If possible I will then use hcl+peroxide. Waste volume is not ideal but limited availability of suitable chemicals is a big issue. 

It So difficult to get things since the acid attacks happened in the U.K. , lots of forms and red tape to go through and I don’t trust my knowledge enough to use precursors to make my own nitric acid / sulphuric acid.


I will use sodium hypochlorite (Milton) 2% rather than chlorox but only at the refining stage after acid peroxide .

Thank you again.





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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 15, 2019)

I’ve been reading around sodium thiosulfate, I see it can be used in gold
Leaching processes , my question is can it be added to hcl+bleach gold chloride to remove excess chlorine and still allow gold to drop with iron 2 sulphate ? 





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## butcher (Dec 15, 2019)

I do not understand why you would want to use sodium thiosulfate in that manner.

a little heat or light will remove excess chlorine.


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 16, 2019)

It’s just something I had lying around and I seem to be developing a habit of over using bleach in my processes

Would a stainless steel pan be suitable for this process, I would use a thick ceramic plant pot but I am afraid it would crack sitting on a naked flame . 

As you can tell, The items available for my processes are some what limited . Many thanks 




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## butcher (Dec 16, 2019)

Owen_Lindsay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CorningWare.

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=28521w
where to start


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 16, 2019)

Great thread thank you, and il keep my eye out for appropriate cook ware to use in my processes


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## FrugalRefiner (Dec 16, 2019)

The best shopping for Corning ware is at yard sales. I usually pay about $1.00 per piece.

Dave


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## Martijn (Dec 16, 2019)

Owen_Lindsay said:


> I would use a thick ceramic plant pot but I am afraid it would crack sitting on a naked flame .


That gave me the shivers.  
Please stop what your doing!!! Don't hurt or poison yourself by making mistakes like that. 
Put the acid away safely and study. Get some proper equipment.
Martijn.


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 17, 2019)

don't worry , i havent employed the use of the ceramic plant pot, i was just chucking out questions to ascertain structural integrity of said item and also get suggestions, as with things in question like that i don't jump in i realise the hazard involved.

unfortunately keyboard strokes don't give adequate give a reflection of a persons naturally cautious nature.
mixing chemicals is one thing knowing what goes in and what should come out, playing with chemical and fire and unknown variable is another and that why i ask for advice.  

thank you for your concern, i have a hoke's book on PDF now and the long read begins!!

thanks all


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## anachronism (Dec 17, 2019)

Owen

Hi. Lab glass is pretty cheap here in the UK. 8) 8) 8) 

Jon


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 17, 2019)

cheers everyone


ill put some money aside for buying proper kit ..

i have a nice rich yellow coloured solution that still isn't dropping with smb, 
the solution was heated for a couple hours on low heat outside in a glass cook ware thick heat proof pyrex dish not exposed to naked flame, still no drop 

i read (can't remember where, likely this forum) that addition of NaOH will aid precipitation , it would drop all metal from solution but down the reactivity series as the Ph increases, i'm no chemist whizz but trying looking at the equation, it looks like i would end up with more SO2 gas produced,NaCl,H2O and of course gold precipitation

does that sound about right or is that statement only valid for untainted auric chloride solution ?

purity is not issue at present, im looking to get it from solution and re-refine once I have got the basics mastered.


:G


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 17, 2019)

For stock pot solutions, can anything go in the stock pot from all stages of the recovery process or should you discard the solution from spent drops?

looking to get a nice big plastic drum and chuck in some old copper wire and pipes.


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## anachronism (Dec 17, 2019)

Are you testing the solution for gold or just thinking that because it's yellow that it must contain gold? 

Jon


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 17, 2019)

stannous tested and instant colour change to pretty much black


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## anachronism (Dec 17, 2019)

Owen_Lindsay said:


> stannous tested and instant colour change to pretty much black



Good that works. 

You'd be amazed how many people we get here who don't do that. 8) 8)


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 18, 2019)

Lol, I’m a noob but am a quick study. 

Once I had attempted a few small drops I made sure stannous was on hand to test residual solution.


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## g_axelsson (Dec 19, 2019)

No, don't add NaOH, it will precipitate everything in a black goo of metal hydroxides, your gold included.

If you have gold in solution but it doesn't precipitating with SMB, then I can only see three reasons.

1. The gold dissolves again, you still have oxidizer left in solution.

2. It isn't SMB you are adding. HCl and SMB gives a vigorous reaction, giving off SO2 as a gas. Don't put your nose in it, it will knock you off your socks, but if you get a whiff of it you will smell a characteristic smell of sulfur dioxide.

3. The pH is close to neutral. Add a bit HCl and it will precipitate the gold. Easy to test with a pH strip, or just add a bit of HCl, it never hurts.

I have personally done 1 and 3. 1 several times but once number 3, I was quite baffled until I understood what was happening. I evaporated the solution to denox it and I forgot about it. When I returned the gold chloride had dried out and I used water to dissolve it again. When I added SMB nothing happened for a long time, then I added a bit of HCl and the gold just came crashing out, everything dropped in seconds.

If nothing else works then put a piece of solid copper in it to cement gold back from solution, then just start over.

Göran


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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 20, 2019)

Awesome stuff thank you , that helps explain the following a lot.

I decanted a bit off and as you said I got black and brown goo, I initially thought I’d done something to precipitate gold iii oxide but it was far too soluble, I slowly dried it and then I added it to more hcl and I’m 80% sure I got hydrogen sulphide being evolved. (Distinctive rotten egg smell) further addition of NaOH made black goo, it must contain sulphur and gold as well as any other dissolved metals. Sulphur being high on the reactivity series so getting dropped out first I assume...

I added the solution to my stock pot and chucked in some copper, now have lots of grey precipitate. Time to check it’s content.

All very exciting.






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## Owen_Lindsay (Dec 21, 2019)

So far mostly silver, time to return it to the stock pot for longer for further cementing out !


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