# Trouble reading posts - Chemistry is all mixed up -



## snoman701 (Oct 17, 2016)

So let me begin with the statement that I'm not new to chemistry. I have the equivalent of a chemistry minor, then worked as a lab tech for quite a few years. I understand that real world chemistry is quite different from that in the classroom...but with that, I'm confused as hell reading this. I'd be better off with polymer or biochemistry, since most acid base reactions are first year chemistry anyway....and that was getting close to 20 years ago. 

Are there any resources that will list the actual chemistry fundamentals, not just "poured a mixture of water and acid over it". 

Some of you are clearly very skilled and knowledgeable....but I have trouble following a lot of the posts. Doesn't anybody do the stoichiometry? I never see mention of what measured yield is vs expected....and this is an area where that should be very very important! 

Just curious if anyone has any suggestions.


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## Lou (Oct 17, 2016)

Reactions vary rarely run per according to stoichiometry due to competing side reactions so modeling systems precisely is difficult from first principles and often requires some empirical work.

In short, the math only matters when it matters.


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## Palladium (Oct 17, 2016)

Numbers! :mrgreen: 
I refine flying by the seat of my pants. I use the basic formulas to get me in the ball park and then it's all experience from there. The only numbers in the end that i really keep up with is the gold that comes out the beaker.


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## anachronism (Oct 17, 2016)

Lou said:


> In short, the math only matters when it matters.



Lou nailed it. There are so many variables including amongst many others, the effects of impurities (and different types of impurities) that a "one size fits all" approach is impossible. 

Palladium has the measure of the practical application, namely you KNOW the chemistry however the variables mean that your experience shows you quantities required for any given recovery.


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## upcyclist (Oct 17, 2016)

To further elaborate, we also strive to minimize our use of acids to only that which is necessary, for both economic and environmental reasons. Because we can't predict all the side reactions, or even the exact composition of our source material, in practice we start with about half of what we expect to need, then add incrementally.

For example, using too much nitric acid adds several problems: it adds direct costs to your operation (even in a learning-only situation), it creates more acid waste to neutralize at the end of the day, and it can inhibit follow-on reactions because excess nitric is consumed first. When precipitating gold, for instance, excess nitric consumes your precipitant before it can even get to the gold and drop it out of solution. So, if I think I need about 100mL of nitric for a given batch of gold I'm dissolving with aqua regia, I add my HCl base (it's much cheaper, but still don't need a liter for this batch), then I add 50mL of nitric. Once that add has fully reacted, I add more & watch for the reaction to settle, lather, rinse repeat.

Sometimes we know to a reasonable degree the composition of our material, like a lot of 14K gold. But even then we don't know the exact makeup of the remaining 42%. Copper? Silver? Zinc? Palladium? Often, we don't know much at all about it--is the metal (much less the other crap) in my polishing sweeps mostly 14K gold? 18K? 950 Platinum? Sterling? All of the above?

So, yeah--stoich only gets you so far


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## kurtak (Oct 17, 2016)

Palladium said:


> Numbers! :mrgreen:
> I refine flying by the seat of my pants. I use the basic formulas to get me in the ball park and then it's all experience from there. The only numbers in the end that i really keep up with is the gold that comes out the beaker.



:lol: :lol: :lol: 

I resemble that statement :mrgreen: 

Actually - I figure when I first got into this - the "fact" that I got a - Big Fat F - in high school chemistry - was probably a good thing (I was one of those HAADD kids before they had a name for it - so I slept though it &/or sat in the back shooting spit wads & playing cards etc.) 

I figure it (the F) was a good thing - because my head was not filled with a bunch of stuff to cloud my head in the leaning of refining - made picking up & learning refining relatively quick & easy because the chemistry involved has all been directly related to refining - & the result is I have also leaned one heck of a lot about chemistry 8) 

If my old high school chemistry teach could see me now :shock: 

Kurt


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## Geo (Oct 17, 2016)

I can add that even though refining requires chemistry, not all refiners are chemist. Many refiners, myself included, understand the chemicals needed for the reaction but may not understand the chemistry behind the reaction. I have no formal education. I had to drop out of school at the age of 15 to get a job. I was the product of a broken home and lived with a single mother. She never remarried so for a very long time it was just my mother and myself. She worked a minimum wage job to support us and there was years I didn't have new school clothes or school supplies. It's a common story I'm sure. With an eighth grade education, I took whatever work I could find. My one saving grace was my love of reading. I read almost anything I could find. Never really having enough of anything fueled my dreams of treasure. Having a background of scrounging for a living, I learned about scrap metal. I learned early that some scrap metal contained gold. I had a dream of someday learning how to get the gold out of scrap metal. I had different degrees of success until I came across this forum. I feel I have had some success in being able to separate the precious metals from the scrap metal since then. I still do not understand chemistry very well, but, I think I have refining almost under control. So, refining requires chemistry but being a refiner does not require one to be a chemist.


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## upcyclist (Oct 17, 2016)

Geo said:


> So, refining requires chemistry but being a refiner does not require one to be a chemist.


+1

People who come with an open mind learn best here (as well as other places, I would hazard to say). The hardest person to teach is the person who thinks they already know everything. We've seen this on the forums more than once.

My favorite ones are the ones who say "But I have a PhD!" and it doesn't come out until later that the PhD is not in chemistry anyway.


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## Lou (Oct 17, 2016)

MS==more of the same, PhD= Piled higher and Deeper.


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## 4metals (Oct 17, 2016)

Geo said:


> I feel I have had some success in being able to separate the precious metals from the scrap metal since then. I still do not understand chemistry very well, but, I think I have refining almost under control. So, refining requires chemistry but being a refiner does not require one to be a chemist.



A successful refiner knows his material and knows which materials can be mixed and which cannot. That is not learned in a chemistry class, that is learned by doing. 

The benefit of being a chemist is the ability to determine from what is going into a reaction, what is going to come out. But in the practical refining world, there is a bit of head scratching involved because one never knows everything about the scrap that goes into a reaction. And with e-waste that is becoming more and more true with every generation of e-scrap. 

So be observant and make notes, they will serve you well for a very long time. And keep reading, you're never too old to learn new tricks.


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## IdahoMole (Oct 17, 2016)

I think I understand the point of view from the OP but if the forum was full of "chemist speak" I would have the headache and the learning curve would be steeper than it already is.


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## snoman701 (Oct 17, 2016)

The learning curve would be steeper, but more beneficial.

If you understand the fundamentals, you can troubleshoot so much more effectively. More than that though, it's the only way one can expect to purposely develop newer more efficient or cleaner processes.

So if anyone has any suggestions on texts or manuals, I'm all ears.


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## butcher (Oct 17, 2016)

Hoke's book actually teaches much of the chemistry in layman's terms recovery and refining, Aside from that most of the chemistry is basically organic chemistry. When I learn or see something or see a reaction mixing a liquid and a powder and see fire, and telling me it is a chemical reaction and a few details about it (only sparks more of my curiosity), I am not satisfied just seeing it and knowing what it is, I want to know more about it (many times every detail I can learn about it). If I see something working I want to tear it apart and see or learn what makes it work. I have learned quite a bit about chemistry from asking the question why does it work that way, what is it... then I look for the answer, I find that answer and several more questions pop up in my research, giving me many more questions to find the answers.

Understanding the chemistry helps in many ways, I find many uses for byproducts of reactions that without the understanding of the reaction may be considered waste.
A good refiner will understand the basic chemistry, he may not be able to write the formula for the reaction or even understand it if he saw it written on paper, or tell you what is going on or what else may be formed in the reaction, but he understands enough of the chemical reactions to recover and refine gold doing the chemistry...

Then we can have a chemist which can balance the formula explain all of the reactions but when it come to refining he would not have a clue what to do if something did not react in a certain way...

I have found the forum, my own inquisitive nature and my love of research to find the answers to my questions, to be a great tool for learning chemistry along with learning to recover and refine.


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## bemate (Oct 18, 2016)

snoman701 said:


> The learning curve would be steeper, but more beneficial.
> 
> If you understand the fundamentals, you can troubleshoot so much more effectively. More than that though, it's the only way one can expect to purposely develop newer more efficient or cleaner processes.
> 
> So if anyone has any suggestions on texts or manuals, I'm all ears.



I'm a chemist myself, and I see your point totally. The problem is that you're not facing a simple set of reaction equations, it's more like 20 happening alongside each other, with some catalyzing each other while inhibiting others and vice versa. The core of the chemistry boils down to which chemicals will react and which will not. That gives you a set of basic tools to explore, learn and improve both the reaction parameters and the yield.

In a way, it's quite similar to what we call natural samples in microbiology; it's a complete mess when you take a bit of soil and dilute in water. You have thousands of different types of bacteria, fungi and viruses competing for the same resources mixed together. Getting a specific type for further work is a mixture of using selective media, specific inhibitors and incubation parameters to favor the one you want. There is no quick fix to use tweezers to pluck out the one you want and isolate it, at least not yet.

I feel this is the situation here as well, the natural samples the gold comes from are so mixed it's just not possible to optimize simply because the next batch you process is different, rendering your optimization obsolete.

But, that does not mean you shouldn't try, most of the relevant reaction equations are here, it's 'only' a matter of balancing then, calculating the composition of your samples and calculating your reaction. Looking at total time spent, I still think you'll be ahead with just adding an excess of acid and doing the waste treatment after. You will, however, have saved some money on chemicals at least.


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## Geo (Oct 18, 2016)

I am not trying to be simplistic about it but while you are trying to fineness a balanced equation, I have already been to market and deposited my check. There are certain things that needs quantitative analysis such as assaying or developing a process or tweaking an existing process, but for the more mundane, day to day processes that are so repetitive that you can do it in the dark, minute fractions falls by the wayside. The only time I have ever truly seen the need for exact measurements is to win an argument. It is even recommended here that you use aqua regia by adding incrementally. There are only a few things that are dangerous by adding too much and I experienced one of them myself. If you are giving a warning that involves exact amounts, then by all means, carry on. If it's it's because a formula only works with exact amounts, sure, that's what it takes. If it's just to say "see, I know more than you", I will be far from impressed.


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## kurtak (Oct 18, 2016)

snoman701 said:


> So if anyone has any suggestions on texts or manuals, I'm all ears.



You can start by reading Hokes book - you will find it as a "free" down load in a number of places here on the forum (start using the search function of the forum) the quickest place you will find it is in FrugalRefiner signature line at the bottom of ALL of his posts 

Also most any book on fire assay - I got mine here :arrow: http://www.actionmining.com/ --- & they have a number of other good books related to refining

Outside of that all I can say is you just need to spend more time searching the forum - there are "LOTS" of posting that get right down to the actual chemistry involved here --- YOU just have to spend YOUR time doing the research --- as have ALL of us that are "active" members --- research - is YOUR responsibility

Wikipedia is also very good source of info

Bottom line --- this field is sooooo VAST that you are NOT going to find all the answers to all your question in any ONE book &/or manual --- it takes "research" LOTS of research

I have been at this for six years & have MANY "thousands" of hours of "my own" research into it --- & I am STILL learning --- the ONLY reason I am able to be the active member here that I am --- is because of the MANY thousands of hour of research that - I - have put into it :!: :!: :!: 

Outside of that (LOTS of research) you are "not" going to find - A - quick one manual covers/explains it ALL 

Kurt


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## anachronism (Oct 18, 2016)

I second the remarks Kurt has made. It's taken me 5 years and a LOT of hours work and research and a great deal of help from other members to get the working knowledge I now have. That knowledge is still tiny compared to some on here.

Learn the basics, nail the base line procedures and you'll be on the right path. Kurt and I are both very hands on refiners learning at the "coal face" if you would. There are a lot of great chemists out there who know diddly squat about practical refining, (and no I don't mean anyone on here I mean out there in the real world) so I would prepare to get your hands dirty and see it all first hand because that's the best learning method. 

You can't get good results by merely reading from a book.


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## upcyclist (Oct 18, 2016)

bemate said:


> The core of the chemistry boils down to which chemicals will react and which will not.


And remember, don't say "boil" if you just mean "heat" or "evaporate" :lol: 

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. For anyone new, that's a joke.


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## 4metals (Oct 18, 2016)

Another aspect of the discussion is the availability of chemicals for a refiner working from home as a hobby or a small business. If it wasn't for the hobbyist fraction of this forum, we would go to the textbooks to get the name of the chemicals required and then call up a chemical supplier to get what you need. I learned on the industrial side of refining so getting chemicals was never an issue, but thanks to this forum, it is possible to find sources which we wouldn't normally consider for our chemicals. 

Last week I was at a refiner and he had no niter, potassium nitrate, an oxidizer for a flux mixture we were working with. Well thanks to what I have learned from this forum, I stopped in at a Home Depot and picked up some Stump Out and an unnecessary rush to get the right chemicals was averted. You won't find a reference to stump out in a chemistry text!

There are suggestions for homemade nitric acid, an alternate source for tin for stannous chloride, a source for sulfamic acid, metabisulfite, ferrous sulfate, and the list goes on. None of them found in the chemistry textbooks. 

Actually someone should start a thread to put all of the unique sources of the chemicals we use in one thread and I can put it in the library.


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 18, 2016)

Well, this is an oldie but a goodie Chemical Common Substitute Source Matrix. It would be a great project if one of our members could compile all the best information from that thread into a single post. :idea: 

Dave


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## Shark (Oct 18, 2016)

For Nitric I have used calcium nitrate, sodium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate.
I found the calcium nitrate as a fertilizer especially for tomatoes.
The potassium Nitrate from Spectracide Stump Remover.
Both the ammonium nitrate and calcium nitrate were just fertilizers. I no longer use either of these just based on cost alone. There are other reasons as well, but cost and travel time to get them was enough of a reason for me.

For sulfamic acid I use TILELabs Sulfamic Acid Cleaner, from the plumbing section of Home Depot.
Copperas from HiYield brand garden supplies. Local farm store.
Spectracide Stump Remover from Lowe's for potassium nitrate.
Hydrocloric acid comes from several places, depending on who has it on sale. Lowe's or Home Depot. Occasionally from local hardware stores.
Copper Sulfate from Lowe's, in the plumbing section, source Zep Root Kill.
Sodium Metabisulfite comes from Home Depot, source Bonide Stump Out.
Sulfuric acid comes from various brands of drain cleaners, I prefer the Rooto or Liquid Fire brands. Can be found in most hardware stores, or Lowe's carries a drain cleaner called Clean Shot, it works but a bit heavy on the inhibitors. 
Battery acid comes from various auto parts stores, prices can be all of the charts here, but a local, non chain store has been my best source.
Bleach can be found in almost any store.
3% Peroxide from the Dollar General store. Cheapest price but Dollar Tree is real close second. 

I prefer to shop local when possible for several reasons. I like to help the local economy when I can but it also provides contacts locally for materials. Often the new contacts alone makes the local shopping worth while. 

Now for the chemistry involved. I have worked hard to understand as much of it as I could, but I found that often my recovery of metals fell behind. No gold recovered means no payday for several people on the forum. And that is just bad business. I try to study enough of the chemistry to not hurt myself or those around me. I like to have a good understanding of what is going on but I don't feel the need to go to the depth that others do. I am also glad there are those here who do and they are willing to share their knowledge with us who don't have that understanding. There is the reference manual for those of us who lack that in depth understanding.

One other thing, I don't have the urge to invent some new process. I have all I can do to learn those provided on the forum without trying to reinvent them. At times I will tweak a few minor things, but I would not call them a new process.


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## snoman701 (Oct 19, 2016)

See, that's just my problem...I do have the desire to understand exactly what I'm doing and what's happening. It's a curse...ultimately the result of a brain that's too smart for the dumbass that carries it around. 

I could just sell my scrap on Ebay and collect the check as well...then in the time you spend processing, list more crap on Ebay. Unless you are processing pretty large batches, it's likely I'd make more...but I'd be bored out of my mind. See above. 

I think the best thing I've done thus far is start paying attention to who is posting what. And yes, some posters are very good at listing the fundamentals of what's happening. There are certain principles that I'm lacking, just because it's been so long since I've read anything related to physical chemistry...my passion for the last 8 years has been anesthesia. 

I started reading chemistry again when I got interested in plants. Tissue culture, mineral & nutrient balance, etc....then when I started moving, I found the bucket of electrical contacts I collected a long time ago. Distracted by something shiny.

Guess I need to go to the thrift store and get a chem 1 book.


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## samuel-a (Oct 19, 2016)

snoman701 said:


> Guess I need to go to the thrift store and get a chem 1 book.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPHzzYuWy6fYEaX9mQQ8oGr

enjoy


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## jason_recliner (Oct 19, 2016)

> Numbers!


"We don't need no stinkin' numbers!" :lol: 



> If it's just to say "see, I know more than you", I will be far from impressed.


As would I. We've had several elitist members who only appear to gloat about their comprehension and mastery of chemistry, while having no experience in real world. Few have lasted long before the door hit them on the R's.

But I don't believe that's the case here. I can understand why someone accustomed to 'stoichio' would be dumbfounded that a forum loaded with professional knowledge and skill has no apparent measurements. Particularly the "Not done yet? Give it some more" concept of incremental nitric.


I am not a chemist, nor would I likely succeed pretending to be one for more than 20 minutes in a bar scam. I left school at the ripe old age of fourteen and became a tradesman in a factory. Not the fluoro variety, but Radio Trades (Electronics) by trade. I once dealt daily with engineers wielding some of the most elaborate, harebrained, theoretical ideas one could imagine; great on paper but not worth a pinch of spit in the real world. (In contrast, these days I work with engineers - more intelligent and educated than myself - to provide the simplest solutions for other tradesmen!) So I can appreciate that many members consider numbers meaningless. 

I owe much to this site but as a hobbyist I freely admit my lack of comprehension in refining as a business. Though it must be obvious that proper yields would (or should) be secrets guarded jealously, so it is only fair that they would generally go unpublished. And of course as it has been said, if you will pardon the missing attribution, the only yield worth anything anyway is your own.

We, collectively, are those who come up with answers to problems such as this: http://i.imgur.com/0HMuaPx.jpg. Brilliant. But not very "stoichio", is it? And so it is with refining. One doing it for a PhD wants Ph to d' finest detail. But one doing it for a living does what is necessary to get the job done in the shortest time with the least fuss and bank that sucker. Some of us are in between.


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## g_axelsson (Oct 19, 2016)

I read a lot of animosity against numbers here and I don't like it. Numbers are cool! :mrgreen: 

I'm one of those at the forum that loves equations. It gives a deeper understanding to what happens in our reactions. But for a practical standpoint it is not really needed, or as Harold used to say : "I can teach a monkey to refine."

The good thing with stoichiometry is that we can calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction. But when that math is done once we can all go by a simple rule as "use 1.2 g potassium nitrate and two ml hydrochloric acid instead of nitric acid making poor mans AR" (not the real formula, just fantasy numbers).

There are actually more reactions written out among the earlier posts and Lasersteve made a great post with a collection of chemical reactions we use.

In the end I would love to see more reactions among the posts, it is a great tool to use and it would help people to reach a higher understanding of what we are doing here. It also might attract some of the more advanced refiners out there and not only the home refiners that think the greatest way to get the gold from electronics is to drop everything into aqua regia and then just get the gold back.

But the reality is that the inorganic chemistry we are doing on a daily basis is just messy. There are so many side reactions and competing reactions going on. If you have a well defined source stream then you can trim a plant to great efficiency. But given a batch system where every batch is different then it becomes more important to learn to read the signs of the reactions and adjust the amount of reagents we use on the fly.

In the mean time, I'll just add equations to my wiki, like on
http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Copper
Not because I want to brag and feel better than others, just because I'm curious and always want to learn more.

Göran


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## 4metals (Oct 19, 2016)

Thank you Jason for summing up the the combined personalities of all members of the forum who can successfully refine with a picture of that red wire! In the end, it comes down to what works.


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## snoman701 (Oct 19, 2016)

No...the elitist version doesn't do much for me. What it does do is fulfill the autistic tendencies I have to do things the "right way"....and by right way, I just mean the fundamental understanding of what's happening. If I'm just going to pour acid on things, I might as well be cooking. At least then I can eat the end product. That's just me though, it shouldn't be misinterpreted as elitist, though I can see how it would. 

I grew up in a family of railroad men three generations deep. I went to college to become an engineer then dropped / transferred out as a senior to go in to physical chemistry / physics. Then I had an emotional break, spent time as an art major and ultimately ended up a vet tech at a university level hospital. The relevancy here....vet tech, art major, engineer....I always fit in with the grad students or young vets / students. I was assumed to be one by many. With all of that, I was their real world mentor. I taught Indian grad students how to use hand tools . I taught young vets how to perform procedures they had never seen...and I taught artists to weld and use tools they had never seen. I am a hands on guy that can get stuff done...and I fully understand the frustrations with theory based learning. With that said, I have found that if you can understand both sides....the theory and the practice, you can do some pretty amazing things. From a practicality standpoint....I'm a fabricator/welder/machinist, artist, inventor, vet tech and general lab tech and aspiring farmer. There's not much I can't do...unless it involves athleticism or social tact. My passion is, and always will be teaching however. I desperately miss coaching grad students and interns. 

What you'll find is that a majority of the "math people" are actually pretty jealous of your knowledge and your ability to think with your hands. With that, their knowledge is actually very powerful, and if you learn to work with them, you can become a pretty amazing team. I can't tell you how many times I heard a doctor (DVM, MD or PhD) say "I wish I could figure out how to do this"...and immediately hear from me, "try this". The hands on knowledge and practicality can feed the theory to amazing potential. Invention is 1% inspiration / 99% perspiration....well, that 1% is really hard to the mechanic, and the perspiration is really hard for a guy that is accustomed to wearing a suit....so work together. 

If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done". 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## nickvc (Oct 20, 2016)

Snoman I hear you loud and clear there is nothing wrong with learning the chemistry behind what we all do but the problem is usually those that have the book work done and dusted but with no practical experience find it hard to be corrected by what they see as uneducated amateurs, we have had many examples over the years.
We have members here who are both chemists and refiners and we have members who struggle to put into words what they know and that is the whole purpose of the forum, we help each other get better at what we all do, we have members whose first language is not English so we all strive to be accurate and correct in what we post and advise, most members never post or rarely post so the active membership takes up the slack and tries to help where they can but few of them are chemists just excellent recovery and refining technicians.
Read and research all the knowledge you are ever going to need to be successful is here, it might not be in standard chemistry textbook form but it's here and it works.


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## kurtak (Oct 20, 2016)

g_axelsson said:


> I read a lot of animosity against numbers here and I don't like it. Numbers are cool! :mrgreen:
> 
> I'm one of those at the forum that loves equations. It gives a deeper understanding to what happens in our reactions. But for a practical standpoint it is not really needed, or as Harold used to say : "I can teach a monkey to refine."



Goran 

I don't think anyone (posting to this thread) has "animosity" against numbers --- numbers play a big & important roll in what we do & we use them everyday in our refining



> The good thing with stoichiometry is that we can calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction



Per the underlined - this is the problem (& it is what snowman701 is looking for) & as you should know - in refining PMs there is no such thing as "calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction" --- there are just flat out to many variables --- & not just in the fact that when refining (taking impure metals & making them pure) a host of "other" metals are involved which changes reaction parameters - but also the conditions under which you preform the reaction will change reaction parameters

Soooo - this is NOT an "exact" science --- which is what every post I have read in this thread is trying to tell snowman701 --- but - he doesn't "seem" to be able to get that though his thick educated head --- (sorry if that sounds rude - its not meant to be - but - rather its a wake up call for snowman701 - to wake up & listen to those of us that may not have the level of education he has - but - have a great deal more experience then him)

Examples - alloys - white gold - is the alloy Au/Pd - Au/Pd/Pt - Au/Ni - Au/Pd/Ag - Au/Ni/Ag/Zn etc. & in what percentages of each metal - & the WIDE range of other Au &/or Ag alloys --- plated pins - are they copper - brass - bronze - kovar &/or a mix of those alloys --- then what about other contaminates - solder - Ni under plating etc. etc. etc. ------ all of which changes the reaction parameters

Then there are the conditions under which you preform the reaction(s)

Examples - are you dissolving solid metals - or powders because this will change reaction parameters - AND - are you preforming the reaction in an open reaction vessel - or a closed reaction vessel - or a vessel under vacuum - again - all of which will change reaction parameters 

Here you go snowman701 --- you want numbers - I will give you "some" (but right out the gate I am going to tell you these numbers are only "in theory" - due to the above)

pure silver --- to dissolve 1 gram it takes 1.17 ml 70% nitric & 1.17 ml distilled H20

pure gold --- to dissolve 1 gram it takes 1 ml 70% nitric & 4 mil 30% HCl

BUT - here is a good example of how that just does not hold up :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=22286&p=233294&hilit=electrolyte#p233294 

following quote from snowman701



> If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done".



How about this --- you show me (first) that you have enough respect for the fact that I have no where near the formal education that you have - BUT - that I have a great deal more "experience" when it comes to refining then you --- AND THEN - you may just EARN enough of my respect to help you learn something about refining

You can start by reading Hokes (like I told you) as well as researching here on the forum

And don't get me wrong - because I am sure that due to your education - you likely have much of value to share with us here - BUT - you need to get rid of this attitude that those of us with less formal education - need to "first" respect you because of your education --- in other words - keep in mind - you have come to "our" house to learn --- we DID NOT come to your house

Kurt


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## anachronism (Oct 20, 2016)

snoman701 said:


> If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done".



I'm old fashioned. Respect has to be earned, and results talk. Remember that Kurt, myself, and many of the other members do understand the chemistry, albeit with a working knowledge rather than a formal qualification. People like Lou and I believe GSP (amongst others) are chemists, but more importantly, the salient point here in this thread is that all of us can actually refine.

You do what you will, and I look forward to seeing your results. To start a journey you have to take a step otherwise you're going nowhere.


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## Palladium (Oct 20, 2016)

My beakers the same size as yours!


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## kurtak (Oct 20, 2016)

Palladium said:


> My beakers the same size as yours!



:lol: :lol: :lol: --- ya but - is it half full - or - half empty :mrgreen: 

Kurt


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## anachronism (Oct 20, 2016)

kurtak said:


> Palladium said:
> 
> 
> > My beakers the same size as yours!
> ...



Yes but whose is fullerer? Haha is there such a word?


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## Geo (Oct 20, 2016)

snoman701, please don't think that I or these guys are attacking you or your beliefs. The forum is full of balanced equations for the hunting. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know exact formulas. The majority of processes people post about now days are electronics. Karat scrap is more predictable and the reactions are basically textbook. Electronics contain mostly copper as the base metal. There is also percentages of almost every other metal in the chart in electronics. That's why you are more likely to read processes as a dash of this or a pinch of that. It is very much like baking a cake and just like baking a cake, there are thousands of varieties and each with their own ingredients.


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## snoman701 (Oct 20, 2016)

I think if anything, I was afraid it was the other way around...that it was taken as I was attacking the experienced folk for not having a PhD in chemistry. 

When I was a mechanic, I worked with a guy that "hate engineers" because of the backwards ways things were designed. It was while working with him that I got accepted to engineering school. I had my rear end handed to me a couple of times by tool makers because I was arrogant. One of those times I was lucky he had bad aim. After that, I figured out that I could get a lot more done working along side or beneath them, utilizing their experience, than standing above supervising or managing.


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## anachronism (Oct 20, 2016)

snoman701 said:


> I think if anything, I was afraid it was the other way around...that it was taken as I was attacking the experienced folk for not having a PhD in chemistry.
> 
> When I was a mechanic, I worked with a guy that "hate engineers" because of the backwards ways things were designed. It was while working with him that I got accepted to engineering school. I had my rear end handed to me a couple of times by tool makers because I was arrogant. One of those times I was lucky he had bad aim. After that, I figured out that I could get a lot more done working along side or beneath them, utilizing their experience, than standing above supervising or managing.



Hehe even though I've got broad shoulders and I never took it as an attack, I'll take that as a back handed apology. It's also accepted.  

Look, the bottom line is this. You need to get your hands dirty as I said before. Well, whilst wearing gloves but you get my drift. You really will see what we're all saying when you do. Trust me on this. 

Jon


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## snoman701 (Oct 20, 2016)

I've been busy...trying to find my lab glass. Unfortunately, I think I threw it out. Had all kinds of stuff too....triple neck flasks, distillation columns, etc. making nitric tomorrow though. I've got a peanut butter jar and some hose....lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Shark (Oct 20, 2016)

> I've got a peanut butter jar and some hose....lol



Peanut butter comes in plastic jars these days, be very careful when heating them as the temper isn't that good. :lol:


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 20, 2016)

I hate to have to be so serious sometimes, but please, let's not make jokes about dangerous processes like making nitric acid. I assume both of you understand the dangers, but a new member with no chemistry background may not. I would hate to think that a post on this forum would ever be the cause of someone getting hurt or worse because we relaxed our standards.

To anyone who may read this thread in the future, do NOT try making nitric in a plastic peanut butter jar.

Dave


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## Refining Rick (Oct 20, 2016)

FrugalRefiner said:


> To anyone who may read this thread in the future, do NOT try making nitric in a plastic peanut butter jar.


HAHAHA!! :lol: That's some funny stuff. Might have to fit that into my sig. line. Just made me laugh out loud when I read it. Not that that it is not good advice.


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## snoman701 (Oct 20, 2016)

Shark said:


> > I've got a peanut butter jar and some hose....lol
> 
> 
> 
> Peanut butter comes in plastic jars these days, be very careful when heating them as the temper isn't that good. :lol:



Wife does the shopping....organic pb is in glass, and kept in the fridge...and so much better!!!


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## g_axelsson (Oct 20, 2016)

Kurt, I thought I made it clear that I do know the limitations of trying to calculate and describe the reactions we run into in real life situations. I think we are on the same page there.

I see it a bit like directions between two cities. A guy with a description will find his way every time as long nothing unexpected happens.
"Go straight forward to the big meadow, take next left..." and so on. This is the refining for a monkey approach. With experience he will eventually learn most back roads and with that added experience less things make him loose his way.

A guy with a map that can see the layout of every back road can still follow a way but has it easier to find his way out of a tight spot and can also spot shortcuts without having to do random testing.

A refiner with the added knowledge of chemistry will have less problems following the directions as he sees the underlying process, he will also have easier to find out what happened when things goes south.

When I run a batch with copper chloride leach I always think of the Cu+ and Cu2+ ions, it might not work faster or better, but it gives a better understanding to what is happening.



kurtak said:


> Here you go snowman701 --- you want numbers - I will give you "some" (but right out the gate I am going to tell you these numbers are only "in theory" - due to the above)
> 
> pure silver --- to dissolve 1 gram it takes 1.17 ml 70% nitric & 1.17 ml distilled H20
> 
> ...


This is actually hilarious, first you give him numbers and then you prove that the numbers for dissolving silver is wrong.
The one for gold is also wrong, I've dissolved 50 grams of gold with circa 30 ml of nitric acid.
And measuring the volume of water with three digits precision is also fun... especially as it isn't used up, but the process works better when diluted.

All this could be shown with some math and formulas. But in reality the numbers are in best case ballpark numbers because of differences in scrap composition. Temperature, concentration and reflux or evaporation will also affect the numbers.

If we write down the formulas for dissolving gold, copper, silver and zinc we could see how much acid we need at least for each metal, then we would easily see that karat gold with a lot of copper would take more acid to dissolve than pure gold.
This is something that we don't need to do every time, just once. After that it can become a rule of thumbs, red gold takes more nitric than gold foils. If it is of use I don't know, but it gives a deeper understanding.

For silver and gold the reactions are so simple so it might just be an academic question, but going into PGM:s then I think a solid understanding of the chemistry behind is a good thing to have.

FreeChemist is a perfect example, too bad he isn't with us any longer. His explanation of how to prepare DMG and why it works is just obvious because he wrote down the formula. Today I don't expect many refiners to know why they should mix the DMG with sodium hydroxide, it just works that way.

Sorry, this has been a rant and I just wish there were more formulas and calculations in the posts on the forum. :wink: 

Göran


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## g_axelsson (Oct 20, 2016)

kurtak said:


> Palladium said:
> 
> 
> > My beakers the same size as yours!
> ...


Beware of the half empty glass if it is the wrong half...
https://what-if.xkcd.com/6/
The lesson: If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks.

:mrgreen: 

Göran, the physicist


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## Palladium (Oct 20, 2016)

Half full - half empty. Both are pessimistic to me.

I like my beaker Full! :mrgreen:


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 20, 2016)

Ahhh... Physicist humor. "But it only works with spherical chickens in a vacuum."

And I thought I was half a bubble off level... Wait, which half? :lol: 

Dave


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## Shark (Oct 20, 2016)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Ahhh... Physicist humor. "But it only works with spherical chickens in a vacuum."
> 
> And I thought I was half a bubble off level... Wait, which half? :lol:
> 
> Dave



Hopefully not the half that floats to the ceiling.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Oct 20, 2016)

I think you are all a few marbles shy of a full load. :roll: :mrgreen:


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## anachronism (Oct 20, 2016)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> I think you are all a few marbles shy of a full load. :roll: :mrgreen:



No, just a sandwich short of a picnic?


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## jason_recliner (Oct 21, 2016)

I guess I must be a pessimist, for I view a glass half full of water as a glass that could be [at least] half full of either wine, beer, cider or scotch.



> To anyone who may read this thread in the future, do NOT try making nitric in a plastic peanut butter jar.


The irony to this big No-No is that peanuts actually contain beneficial dietary nitric oxide, NO! :lol:


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## kurtak (Oct 21, 2016)

You guys crack me up - lots of good laughs to go with my cup of coffee this morning (which is now half empty - ya - no wait - half full - ya - no wait - now I an confused) :lol: :lol: :lol: 

anyway just a few comments ------------



anachronism said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> > Palladium said:
> ...



Then palladium wrote ---------



> Half full - half empty. Both are pessimistic to me.
> 
> I like my beaker Full!



Just be careful because if your beakerer is to fullerer you might have a foamerer overer when the reaction gets goinging :lol: :twisted: 



> Beware of the half empty glass if it is the wrong half...
> https://what-if.xkcd.com/6/
> The lesson: If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks.
> 
> ...



:shock: So your saying when drinking from a glass that is half full/half empty --- I should wear my PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) :wink: :lol: 



> And I thought I was half a bubble off level... Wait, which half?
> 
> Dave



That's a good thing - IF - your a plumber - & - the half bubble off is in the direction of the drain :mrgreen: 



> I think you are all a few marbles shy of a full load.



Speaking for myself - that's always been true - just ask any of my friends :!: :lol: 



> No, just a sandwich short of a picnic?



That's ok - I will go without a sandwich & take more chips (BGAs are my favorite) :mrgreen: 

Kurt


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## kurtak (Oct 21, 2016)

g_axelsson said:


> Kurt, I thought I made it clear that I do know the limitations of trying to calculate and describe the reactions we run into in real life situations. I think we are on the same page there.



Per the under lined - Yes my friend - I am sure we are on the same page in that regard --- we are each just approaching the deeper content of this thread from different angles --- which is a good thing mate :!: 8) 



> Sorry, this has been a rant



So no need to be sorry - I am not seeing a rant - but rather an "good" opening for further discussion 8) 

But today I have an appointment at 8:00 AM & will be gone "all" day --- So tomorrow 

Kurt


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## kurtak (Oct 21, 2016)

Geo said:


> snoman701, please don't think that I or these guys are attacking you or your beliefs.



Correct Geo --- snowman701 - I am not attacking you --- I have to leave for an appointment in a few minutes & will be gone all day - so will explain more tomorrow

And by the way - welcome to THE worlds "leading" discussion forum about refining precious metals

Kurt


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