# Aqua Regia problem



## agm123a (May 15, 2013)

Greetings All,

This is my first post. I like to find the answer for my self but this one has me stumped. I am sure the answer is staring me in the face but I can see it. :shock: I am hoping someone may have some insight into my problem.

I began with 53 grams of call phone pins and other nick knacks found in there. I put these into AP ( a 50/50 solution of HCL and Peroxide) for a good while (4 hrs). I know this may not have been long enough but I needed to move and I hoped that I got most of the base metals as the solution was a very dark green. I filtered this solution through 4 coffee filters. After filtration I added the black powder and foils into a clean beaker with the nick knacks which still had gold foil on them. To these things I added about 100 to 150ml of HCL and 1 teaspoon of sodium nitrate (shor product). I waited about 1 hr and checked that all was digested then filtered this solution again to a new and clean beaker. At this point, I added 28grs of SMB which I dissolved in 240ml of water to the solution and stirred. I waited for some sort of reaction but none was forthcoming so I heated it again and added 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of the Shor storm precipitate in the hopes that something would happen. Again, nothing. I added a little "picker" gold I had to check for free nitric. I did not notice any reaction.

This morning the solution was a deep golden color with no precipitate. I wet a Q-tip with Ammonia and held it over the beaker which immediately reacted. 

My questions are these:

What can I do to get this thing to drop?
Is there a post which deals with this problem? If so, could someone post a link?
If the answer is in Ms. Hoke's book could someone tell me the chapter? I did not see any mention except the evap which I am trying now.

I appreciate any help and/or constructive criticism on how I might improve. Below is a photo of what I am dealing with. I hope I attached it right. I am sorry if I multi posted that was not my intent.



Sincerely,
Patrick


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## butcher (May 15, 2013)

I would leave the gold button “picker” in solution as you follow the evaporation process found in Hoke’s book.

It would be hard for me to point you to a certain page or chapter in Hokes book to answer many questions of recovery and refining problems, or the principles we need to understand to correct problems or keep from creating these troubles, a lot of these answers are not normally found on one page or one chapter of Hokes book, but in reading and understanding the book as a whole, to gain a good understanding of the whole concept of how and why things are done, or why they are not done. It is in the understanding of the principles, along with how the metals react in solutions, and how processes are performed in a certain manner, and which process we may need, and an understanding what could have gone wrong and what may be the best course, or method to find out and determine what may be needed to correct our problem, that gives us an ability to solve our problems.

Do not boil your solution, just give it enough heat to slowly evaporate it, although C.M. Hokes used the term Boil, she was doing the evaporation process on a steam table, which will not get the solution up to the boiling point, she was just heating the solution, not actually boiling it to where values are lost.

The gold "picker" may not go into solution easily because of the silver which can be included with the gold, which could form a silver chloride crust.

After the evaporation process, I would test your solution with stannous chloride, or the better yet the ferrous sulfate test with a copperas crystal in a spot plate or white plastic spoon, if the gold solution in the spot plate will produce the brown ring of elemental gold around the crystal of copperas, then not only does this prove gold in solution, but it also shows the gold can be reduced back to a metal.


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## agm123a (May 15, 2013)

Thank you for your advise. I will certainly take it. I will go back through Ms. Hoke's book and see if I can glean any nuggets (pun intended 8) ) of wisdom.


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## squarecoinman (May 15, 2013)

agm123a said:


> Greetings All,
> 
> This is my first post. I like to find the answer for my self but this one has me stumped. I am sure the answer is staring me in the face but I can see it. :shock: I am hoping someone may have some insight into my problem.
> 
> ...




Dear Patrick , Butcher one of the grand masters has already given you a answer , but you write that you also would like to have some criticism.

I Have a few questions for you.

How many grams did you think you could recover from 53 grams of gold plated pins from Cell phones ? If it is more easy we can do this in micro grams.
What are Knick knacks ? are they made of Tin, Copper etc ? 

But I needed to move ? 

When refining gold there are some simple rules, 1 Safety for you and others, 2 No rus , it will take time special the learning part.

Did you use the search function, If you search SMB ratio you will find several post that normally will give you a ratio of 1 to 1, that is 1 gram of SMB is used to drop 1 gram of gold.

Where did you find that you should mix 50 HCL with 50 Peroxide ( also how strong is your HCL and how strong is the peroxide ) ?

squarecoinman


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## Claudie (May 15, 2013)

I may have misunderstood the original post, but it would seem to me that with a 50/50 ratio of peroxide & HCL, that most of the small amount of Gold would go into the solution. If the copper from the pins was not allowed to dissolve, it couldn't push the Gold back out. If it was the filtered particles that went into the next solution, there wouldn't be any Gold there, would there? I am guessing that there would be less than 1/8 of a gram, at best, of Gold in 53 grams of pins. Now if most of that Gold went into the first solution, would there even be any Gold left to detect in the second?


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## agm123a (May 16, 2013)

squarecoinman said:


> agm123a said:
> 
> 
> > Greetings All,
> ...



Thank you Sqaurecoinman for your reply. The reason I had to move was do to personal reasons. I hope I dont offend anyone but that is personal. I thought I would get at least 1 to 2 grams of gold for several reasons, but I very likely made a mistake in my estimation. I thought I would try Lazer Steves ratio on the SMB from one of his videos. I did not think it would hurt and if it failed I would start again.

The Knick Knacks are mostly the pins and gold foil areas. I never underestimate the chemicals I am using. I always use safety measures as per protocol.

Yes, I have used the search feature but either my keywords were useless or the problem was not in the forum (I believe the former, but never hurts to ask questions). 

As for the 50/50 ratio on the AP, did I get my numbers wrong? I could have sworn it was a 50/50 ratio. I just re-watched the video and I was wrong. Seems it is a 2/1 ratio.

Again thanks for your replys to my situation. I hope I answered the posed questions.

Patrick


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## butcher (May 16, 2013)

agm123a,
It can be hard to answer questions on a process, someone describes, when you are not the one doing the process or you cannot see the things being done or the reactions taking place.

I did not notice the low volume of gold material which was added, working with tiny amounts of gold is hard to recover, add a large volume of base metals to the solution it becomes more difficult to get that little bit of gold.

I did think the peroxide volume was too high, and was not sure of the percentage of the peroxide used,which very well could have put gold into solution with the base metals, but when you said you had black powders and foils, I assumed if this was the case gold plated back out of solution with the remaining base metals, and the foils were gold (not undissolved base metals), I was not sure what you were referring to as nick knacks, but it sounds like you dissolved them into solution with your black powders and foils in this home made aqua regia solution, the color of your solution looks yellow , which is what we look for in a gold chloride solution, but iron can also give us a golden colored solution, you then added a "picker" which I assumed was a nugget of placer gold to this solution, which depending on what the solution was, or if there were free acids available could also put gold into solution (but may not have), the solution could very possibly be an iron chloride, and any gold was left behind on undissolved metal, or it could be a solution containing gold, I kind of suspect Iron, but do not know, iron in solution which can be tested for (see Hoke's page 100), but in order to test for iron, or gold we need to remove free nitric acid which can mess up our tests, after the evaporation process, you will probably end up with powders (of gold if any gold was in solution) and other salts which are soluble, some insoluble, because you already have previously used SMB, if there remains gold in solution, your tests with stannous chloride or ferrous sulfate will work without the free nitric to tell you, you could end up finding out you do not have any gold solution, and you did not get back out any gold from this solution, that your gold was left behind on undissolved metals, and the gold nugget was not dissolved into the solution, when an iron chloride, which can look green or yellow depending on the conditions of the iron, when this solution is heated we can get a red insoluble powder of iron red rouge, this red iron powder will not dissolve easily into solution, in fact with aqua regia gold powders if mixed with this red rouge would dissolve leaving most of the iron behind.

I am not sure you will get any gold from this experiment, but I do think you will learn from it, that it is not as easy to recover gold as you thought it would be, and that maybe you should study more, to understand this better, so that you will not lose your gold.

There are so many more ways we can lose gold, and very few ways that work well to recover gold, or refine our gold, it takes quite a bit of study to learn how not to lose our gold, when we try to dissolve the base metal atoms to ions, without attacking our gold, and then when we dissolve the gold metal atoms into ions and then try to make the gold back into gold metal atoms again.

Through this process it sounds like you made several mistakes, but the only real problem was not getting a good understanding before attempting to try these processes, it will take quite a bit of study to get that understanding, this is where Hoke's book and the forum will help in your study.


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## Claudie (May 16, 2013)

It appears that you are working in your garage, just in case you didn't know, any bare metal in there will begin to rust rapidly. Lawn mower parts, tools, anything like that will soon look old and rusty if left in the same room where you do your work, not to mention the health risk.


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## Jimmi (May 23, 2013)

OK, first things first. I admire your desire to learn about refining precious metals. However, ( and I believe no one has touched on this yet) AP takes days at least to digest base metals in the case of fingers. It can also take weeks on the case of gold plated pins. Which was the majority of the material you started with. 
If I were in your shoes I would do what has been suggested to countless others who have made the same beginners mistake by rushing forward without properly understanding what is really entailed with the activity at hand. 
Stop doing what your doing and read Hoke and the forum until you actually understand what's going to happen and what you need to do. Also stay away from Shore. They just take money from people who don't understand what they are getting into and lead you down the wrong pathway to success. Stick with the people here. And read what they tell you to read until you really understand it. And you will fnd the success and rewards you are looking for. Good luck!


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## agm123a (May 24, 2013)

Thank you all for your words and encouragement. I will take them to heart. I hope and pray that everyone's "experiments" yield a bunch of "cinnamon" (just don't eat it!).

Patrick


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