# inquarting with copper



## chrisjames (May 27, 2015)

Hi guys,

I've asked a similar question in another forum but I have since refined the question in the hope of a definite answer.

I have various scraps of different karat gold, melted together would equate 18K. I live in the UK and am unable to get nitric acid.
I have a good grasp of many of the processes however am unsure if this will work and don't want a frozen reaction to then have to mess about with further steps.

My questions are as follows:

If I melt the gold together (to about 18k) can I then go straight to poor man's AR, to then dissolve and precipitate (I'm worried about possible silver content and therefore silver chloride build up)

Or

Melt the gold with copper to increase the percentage of other metals (Copper and gold over silver) and then poor man's AR to dissolve.

I assume that once the solids are dissolved I can neutralise any nitrate with urea and precipitate with SMB. Then go through the washes and another possible dissolve.

Again I am sorry if I am repeating myself however I am still not too sure what to do.
Thanks in advance,

Chris


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## rewalston (May 27, 2015)

First I'd forget about the Urea, it has no use in recovery/refining. From what I have read, you can use Sulfamic Acid to get rid of the excess nitric, or use the evaporation method. It's all on the forum. Again I have not done any recovery such as this, so I'm not 100% positive, but these are the routes I'd go.

Rusty


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## goldsilverpro (May 27, 2015)

There are quite a few UK members here. Maybe they'll tell you where they get their nitric. Nick?


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## chrisjames (May 27, 2015)

Thanks but the problem is that I don't have a licence, in the UK you need a licence to buy certain acids etc


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## mls26cwru (May 27, 2015)

Sulfamic acid will work to neutralize excess nitric. Careful when doing so though, the reaction can be vigorous. Sulfamic also has an added benifit... It makes sulfuric acid when it neutralizes the nitric which will help dissolve lead chloride and keep it out of your gold.

Sulfamic Acid is sold in granual form as tile grout cleaner.


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## chrisjames (May 27, 2015)

Thanks but again I'm really trying to get information on whether the recovery phase is viable.


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## nickvc (May 27, 2015)

Chris I have given you my best advice already, the silver content of nearly all 18 k alloys is very low so the silver shouldn't be a problem, try it and see if you find it won't dissolve simply remelt with added copper.
Like many pros I always dissolved my karated alloys directly in AR, the only problem was English 9k which has 12-15% Ag if it's Italian then no problem they used little to no silver to keep costs down, one caveat to that statement is if you have 9-14 k white which can be a silver based mix again only with reasonable quality goods.


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## chrisjames (May 27, 2015)

Hi Nick,

Sorry I wasn't trying to go over your head and I had taken down what you said. I just wanted clarification as I have read other things that confused me slightly.

I mentioned before that I have different carats of gold. I actually have about a third 9k gold, some 14 and 18, lots of 22 and some 24k. That's why I'm so cautious about the silver content due to the 9k gold.

Thanks again,
Chris


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## MrMylar (May 27, 2015)

chrisjames said:


> Hi Nick,
> 
> I mentioned before that I have different carats of gold. I actually have about a third 9k gold, some 14 and 18, lots of 22 and some 24k. That's why I'm so cautious about the silver content due to the 9k gold.
> 
> ...


If you have enough 22 and 24K to almost be the weight of the others, then you can simply melt it like it is and then use AR to dissolve it.

Or, just to test it out, take some of your 22 or 24K and melt it with some of the 9K and dissolve in AR. If it works out for that test, then try the rest. But, if you give an amount in weight of each of what you have, everyone else, including you will have a clearer idea of how you should proceed. By you saying that you have 22 and 24K make me think that you may not need to add anything to the metals to even break it down to 18K, if that's your goal.

Also, depending on your goal and the amount of each karat you have, you may find that there may be little to no silver at all in the batch you have.

Other than that, I say that you will need some Nitric acid and melt your items and pour into a bucket to make corn flakes and then proceed to the Nitric acid. Then, after you've exhausted all the nitric or adding more does no more reaction to the solution, then all you need to do is filter the solution, stick a piece of copper in it and if there is any silver in the solution, it'll drop out from the copper pipe. All of the solids from the solution batch should be just gold.

Remember, if you're really concerned about the silver, then you should get some nitric acid to separate it from the other metals. I'm sure there are members here on the forum that are somewhere near you that have some and can tell you where and how to get it.

Hope that helps!


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## chrisjames (May 27, 2015)

My apologies, I've weighed the gold and here is what I have:

9k: 15g
14k: 13g
18k: 11g
22k: 18g
24k: 16g

The combined carat is approximately 18k
As I mentioned before I don't have a licence to purchase or aquire nitric acid as it is a controlled substance in the UK.

There is less 9k than I thought but I am still unsure if there is enough low carat to be a problem if I go straight to poor mans AR.

Regards,

Chris


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## Anonymous (May 27, 2015)

Hi Chris

I asked in PM but you didn't get it apparently. Drop me a PM and let me know which part of the UK you're from mate.

Jon


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## MrMylar (May 27, 2015)

From those figures, I would either one or the other....

1. Take an equal amount of each karat and melt them all together and then after melting do an acid test on it.

a) If it is higher than 18K, then I would take that piece and inquart that with a piece of copper and repeat the process and test with acid.
b) If it is lower than 18K, then I would add some higher karat gold to bring it up to 18K. 

If you get the karat you want by doing that or something similar, then you should be able to determine what amount of each karat piece you need (maybe some copper too) to get to 18K.

The caveat to all of what I'm saying is that each piece is more than likely made from different sources and each source will most likely have a different metal than the other source. You would have to test it first.

But, for the sake of getting my whole batch to 18K, if it were me, I would simply melt 1-5g of each karat together and test it. The worst thing that could happen is that you'll have either less than 18K or more than 18K. Either way, it can be refined to 18K if needed. 

If it's more than 18K, add some copper to it and remelt and test. If it's less than 18K, add a higher karat than what the test shows.


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## Anonymous (May 27, 2015)

Adding copper would increase the amount of Nitric required over that of adding silver. I would suggest silver over copper any day.

My limited understanding of inquarting ( Harold is the best on here for that) suggests that you need the gold content to be at the highest 25% or under 25% overall. I could be completely wrong here of course because my small expertise is limited to IT escrap where inquarting has no place. Is 25% gold 18k?

I would look at the overall mix of the gold you have and work out what portions of it, melted together would give you the required percentages to inquart with no further additions of metal (If possible) and look at adding silver as opposed to copper. 

I'm sure that an expert in this field would be able to define those numbers.

edit- copper for gold.


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## rewalston (May 27, 2015)

spaceships said:


> Adding copper would increase the amount of Nitric required over that of adding silver. I would suggest silver over copper any day.
> 
> My limited understanding of inquarting ( Harold is the best on here for that) suggests that you need the gold content to be at the highest 25% or under 25% overall. I could be completely wrong here of course because my small expertise is limited to IT escrap where inquarting has no place. Is 25% gold 18k?
> 
> edit- copper for gold.



Pure gold is 24k, when you inquart gold you are quartering the gold. So you would have 1/4 gold and 3/4 copper or silver...So 1/4 gold would be 6k roughly. I believe that's what harold had said.

Rusty


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## goldsilverpro (May 27, 2015)

mls26cwru said:


> Sulfamic acid will work to neutralize excess nitric. Careful when doing so though, the reaction can be vigorous. Sulfamic also has an added benifit... It makes sulfuric acid when it neutralizes the nitric which will help dissolve lead chloride and keep it out of your gold.


Sulfuric acid doesn't dissolve lead chloride. It precipitates lead sulfate and therefore can be removed by filtration before the gold is precipitated.


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## mls26cwru (May 27, 2015)

goldsilverpro said:


> mls26cwru said:
> 
> 
> > Sulfamic acid will work to neutralize excess nitric. Careful when doing so though, the reaction can be vigorous. Sulfamic also has an added benifit... It makes sulfuric acid when it neutralizes the nitric which will help dissolve lead chloride and keep it out of your gold.
> ...



Thank you for the correction GSP. I must have mixed up my reading somewhere :/


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## Geo (May 27, 2015)

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned and I didn't see it but you do not need AR when inquarting. When you lower the karat of a gold alloy to 6K (you can digest 10K slowly) it enables the nitric acid to work around the gold and digest the base metal leaving a sponge like material of mostly pure gold. Since it takes much less nitric acid to digest a greater volume of silver as apposed to copper, silver is recommended for inquarting. Inquarting is considered a refining process and not a recovery process even though it can be used for the purpose.

The nitric acid should be diluted as much as 50% by distilled water when inquarting.


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## goldsilverpro (May 27, 2015)

chrisjames said:


> 9k: 15g
> 14k: 13g
> 18k: 11g
> 22k: 18g
> 24k: 16g


As a math problem, let's assume you do want to melt all these together and add enough Ag or Cu to inquart them (reduce the gold to 25%). I am assuming that you're unsure about the purity of the 24K. If you are positive it is 24K (999.5 Fine, or better), don't include it. When something is pure, don't mess with it.

*(1)* First, calculate the total amount of gold.
(15)(9/24) + (13)(14/24) + (11)(18/24) + (18)(22/24) + (16)(24/24) =
(5.625) + (7.583) + (8.25) + (16.5) + (16) = 53.958g

*(2)* Add up the object's weights:
15 + 13 + 11 + 18 + 16 = 73g

*(3)* Determine how much Ag or Cu to add. Multiply the total gold content times 4 and subtract the total weight of the objects:
Ag or Cu to add = (4)(53.958) - 73 = 142.8g

*(4)* Proof. Divide the Au weight by the total weight after inquartation.
Gold = (53.95)/(73 + 142.8g) = 53.95/215.80 = 0.25 = 25%

As an aside, the average gold % is 53.95/73 = .739, almost 18K.


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## Geo (May 27, 2015)

To expand on my meaning, if you lower the karat to try and dissolve everything in AR, silver chloride will still make the job a big pain.


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## goldenchild (May 27, 2015)

rewalston said:


> First I'd forget about the Urea, it has no use in recovery/refining. From what I have read, you can use Sulfamic Acid to get rid of the excess nitric, or use the evaporation method. It's all on the forum. Again I have not done any recovery such as this, so I'm not 100% positive, but these are the routes I'd go.
> 
> Rusty



No disrespect but how can you give advice about urea having no place in refining if you've never "done any recovery such as this". The best thing to do in order to not have excessive nitric in you final solution is to add nitric to your scrap incrementally allowing each addition to be exhausted. Unfortunately no matter how careful you are there is almost always unused nitric. If the amount left over is very small you've done well. Some people on this forum swear by the evaporation method and shun urea but in reality the evaporation method can be very slow and deceiving while urea is fast and predictable. Urea works just fine especially when dealing with small amounts of nitric. Urea absolutely does have a place in refining!


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## jonn (May 28, 2015)

chrisjames said:


> My apologies, I've weighed the gold and here is what I have:
> 
> 9k: 15g
> 14k: 13g
> ...



Hi Chris, Yes, you can use poor man's AR on your material. Here's a recommendation for you :
Melt the 22k with the 18k, make a button and flatten between a piece of leather by beating with a hammer. 
Digest in AR and precipitate. 
Add the dry powder to the 14k, melt and repeat the steps above. 
Add that dry powder with your solid 24k to the 9k and melt into a button . Repeat the steps above, flattening, digesting, etc..
If for some reason you run into a problem with the silver chloride freezing your reaction, simply place your beaker in a sonic jewelery type cleaner, the ultrasonic effect will allow for a complete digest. 
I would not add copper, or silver if you can't get nitric. That would be inquarting and that requires nitric. Good luck. 
Jonn

Ps. AR works excellent on high karat gold, and rather quickly if thin and rolled into a coil standing on end. Add some heat.


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## jason_recliner (May 28, 2015)

Genius idea, Jonn!
The only difference I would offer, keeping in mind I have never done any of this, is to consider keeping the 24k until after the 9k is digested.
Of course this depends on just how "24k" it is, but if it's top shelf stuff then you can use it to ensure you have used up all the nitrate, a la "Harold's button", then melt it in.


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## chrisjames (May 28, 2015)

jonn said:


> Hi Chris, Yes, you can use poor man's AR on your material. Here's a recommendation for you :
> Melt the 22k with the 18k, make a button and flatten between a piece of leather by beating with a hammer.
> Digest in AR and precipitate.
> Add the dry powder to the 14k, melt and repeat the steps above.
> ...



John that really is a genius idea. I hadn't thought about that!
The 24K is an old necklace from Thailand so I would have to say I can't imagine it is very pure.
Unfortunately I don't have a sonic jewellery cleaner and can't really justify the expense for one project.

If I can't get hold of the nitric I think this will be the way to go. at least it'll be quite interesting at any rate!

Thanks again John, you've been a great help.

Chris


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## chrisjames (May 28, 2015)

Thanks so much guys. I've taken lots of notes from you all. You've all been so helpful!

I'm thinking about Johns idea about keeping the carat as high as possible and doing it in stages. In my head it seems like a good idea. Of course I may be on here panicking that I've messed up but we shall see 

I'll get the bits together and start things this weekend.

Kind regards,

Chris


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## rewalston (May 28, 2015)

goldenchild said:


> No disrespect but how can you give advice about urea having no place in refining if you've never "done any recovery such as this". The best thing to do in order to not have excessive nitric in you final solution is to add nitric to your scrap incrementally allowing each addition to be exhausted. Unfortunately no matter how careful you are there is almost always unused nitric. If the amount left over is very small you've done well. Some people on this forum swear by the evaporation method and shun urea but in reality the evaporation method can be very slow and deceiving while urea is fast and predictable. Urea works just fine especially when dealing with small amounts of nitric. Urea absolutely does have a place in refining!



None taken. I've been doing a lot of reading in the years that I've been here. I was simply repeating what I have read over and over by the Pros on the board. Even Harold says not to use urea. Simply put I rely on what the Pros are saying and that is what I passed on. If others want to use urea that is fine by me. There are other ways to kill the nitric, some fast, some slow. I guess it all comes down to what you have and what you want to do.

Rusty


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## Anonymous (May 28, 2015)

rewalston said:


> spaceships said:
> 
> 
> > Adding copper would increase the amount of Nitric required over that of adding silver. I would suggest silver over copper any day.
> ...



I got that Rusty - I was being almost rhetorical mate 8) 8)


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## Anonymous (May 28, 2015)

Chris if you can avoid having to faff about with Silver Chloride I would do so.


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## g_axelsson (May 28, 2015)

To answer the original post I would say that the subject is wrong, as been noted later in this thread inquarting is lowering the gold content so all the base metals could be dissolved without dissolving the gold. What chrisjames is trying to do is "dilute gold alloy for direct digestion".

I don't remember exactly which level of silver could be accepted for direct dilution, GSP have written about it and I think it was in the vicinity of 5-10%, probably closer to 5%. At that level it was possible to go directly to AR without inquarting first.

So to answer the first question, yes, you can dilute the alloy with copper until the silver level is low enough to allow for direct digestion with poor mans AR. As you don't know exactly the amount of silver in your scrap I suggest testing on a small piece of remelted alloy to see if the silver level is low enough. If it isn't, just add more copper and remelt.

Göran


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## goldsilverpro (May 28, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> To answer the original post I would say that the subject is wrong, as been noted later in this thread inquarting is lowering the gold content so all the base metals could be dissolved without dissolving the gold. What chrisjames is trying to do is "dilute gold alloy for direct digestion".
> 
> I don't remember exactly which level of silver could be accepted for direct dilution, GSP have written about it and I think it was in the vicinity of 5-10%, probably closer to 5%. At that level it was possible to go directly to AR without inquarting first.
> 
> ...



With real AR, 8% Ag slows the dissolving rate down and 10% really slows it down. 

The problem is that no one knows how much Ag is in each item on the list. Guessing is worthless because of the huge silver spread possible in each. According to a chart I have that I feel is reliable, the Ag in yellow 10K usually runs from 5% to 12%, yellow 14K from 4% to 17%, and yellow 18K from 10% to 20%. All depends on what exact shade of yellow the manufacturer preferred.


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## Anonymous (May 28, 2015)

If Chris wants to do it the simplest way I can sell him 150g of silver and I'm sure that I can point him in the right direction for some Nitric, because it's perfectly legal to own it in the UK as an individual until 2016. Then he could inquart properly and not have to mess about with processing in poor man's AR and then have to mess around with silver chloride. There's no need to over complicate things. 

The silver isn't a wasted cost because it's then recovered and kept to use for other things or to be sold.

Jon


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## g_axelsson (May 28, 2015)

Another good example of refiners helping refiners!

8) 

Göran


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## davisnic12 (Jan 9, 2016)

Okay, I have been reading up for about a week. I have scrap jewelry from 10k to 18k, I see talk on silver freezing the reaction. The 18k I have is white gold 27.6 grams, 14k yellow 5.1g, and I think I am going to hold off on doing the 10k for now which I have about 50g. on the 14-18k going into AR will that hold the alloy in solution? I think I've read just enough to get into trouble. Should I do the nitric wash on the gold first filter then AR, or go straight to AR? WHere do the rhodium and other alloys go? Can anyone point out the thread for that? I don't want to inquartate if I don't have to but if that's the way to go....


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## UncleBenBen (Jan 9, 2016)

davisnic12 said:


> I think I've read just enough to get into trouble.



That is the answer to your questions. Unfortunately, a week isn't near enough time to learn what you are wanting to do. Refining is a lifelong study, there is just so much to be learned. Read and reread Hoke until you understand what she is teaching about processing karat scrap. All your questions will be answered there.

Once you have studied the processes enough to begin without asking questions, you will still need to learn how to deal with the toxic wastes you will be creating.

Take the time to find the answers yourself, and you will learn so much more on the way, and in the end you will be glad you did. Good luck and stay safe!


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## FrugalRefiner (Jan 9, 2016)

davisnic12 said:


> I don't want to inquartate if I don't have to but if that's the way to go....


When I first started studying refining, I didn't understand why people inquarted their material. So I'll answer your question with a question. Why do we inquart? What is the purpose? When you understand the answer, you can apply it to your material. Hoke covers the subject quite well. It's also been discussed extensively here on the forum. You may understand my answer better if you read through the Why Can't I Ask a Simple Question and get a Simple Answer? thread.

Dave


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## Harold_V (Jan 30, 2016)

I had a few spare moments and came across this thread. Interesting that such a simple process is confusing to so many. 

The purpose of inquartation is to allow for dissolution of the resulting alloy, but it is not restricted to gold being 25%. As has already been discussed, there's absolutely nothing wrong with alloying such that gold is the predominant metal, which then allows for dissolution with AR. That is, assuming that silver content is lower than 10%. When it's low enough, or when the particles are fine enough, it isn't a problem, although there is considerable reside remaining (silver chloride) from which one must rinse the gold chloride. 

Alternately, if one intends to furnace recover waste values in the future, traces of gold can remain, to be recovered when the accumulated wastes are processed. That was my procedure, and it served me exceedingly well, as I withheld all of my waste materials for years, as a retirement plan.

Hint. When you must inquart, regardless of which way, pouring the molten metal to water creates what I call corn flakes. So long as the metal is poured from the lip of a melting dish or crucible, it won't form pellets, so the surface area is quite large as compared to the cross section. In most cases, by the time silver chloride is becoming a problem, acid has penetrated to the center, so the pieces simply disintegrate, leaving behind the silver chloride as finely divided powder. Conversely, if one dissolves the base metals with nitric, there is full penetration of the acid before isolation prevents further dissolution of the base metals. 

Inquartation with silver has some distinct advantages. In general, one rarely processes enough platinum or palladium to warrant an attempt at recovery. If you've read Hoke's book and understand what she teaches, you then realize that those metals do not precipitate chemically unless they are somewhat concentrated, and even then they may or may not come down entirely. It was exceedingly rare for me to recover either of them to the point where they were not detected in the solution from which they came. 

To get around that problem, one is well served to inquart with silver. Doing so provides a way to recover both metals with little effort, as they follow the silver and cement when the solution is provided with copper. The ultimate recovery is then accomplished when the cement silver is parted in the silver cell, leaving behind a high concentration of both metals. 

I generally advise against the use of copper alloys for inquartation. The risk of introducing lead or tin is all too real, both of which complicate the refining process. I highly recommend the use of silver, for the reason I mentioned, above, although the fact that silver consumes far less nitric in the process of being dissolved is also reason enough to avoid the use of copper. 

Read Hoke's book. Read it until you understand what she teaches. If it takes a half dozen readings, so be it. You'll be well pleased that you did when things start making sense to you. 

Harold


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