# Lead/borax sub for Hg



## EVO-AU (Nov 7, 2008)

To one and all: I just ran across an item that states that lead/borax can be substituted for Hg. Anybody out there on this most informative forum ever come across this beauty ? 
Evo


----------



## Lou (Nov 7, 2008)

In substitution for what? You give no details as to what you're really seeking?

Please be more specific.


----------



## butcher (Nov 7, 2008)

are you are talking about collecting very fine gold,
smelting with lead and borax in the flux mix.
and mercury almagams.
two different processes?


----------



## ChucknC (Nov 8, 2008)

Sounds like a fire assay.


----------



## Lou (Nov 8, 2008)

Well, who fire assays with mercury?! (We need a deadman smiley) Wouldn't be too effective with fire, as it would boil away!


----------



## jsargent (Nov 8, 2008)

Maybe he's under the impression that sane people still use mercury to recover gold, hense the "substitue for" part. :shock:


----------



## butcher (Nov 8, 2008)

sane people still do use mercury to recover gold, and they use cyanide and Aqua regia ect, they just learn to do it safely, copper can be just as poisionous as mercury. it just doesn't have the stigma attatched to it.


----------



## jsargent (Nov 10, 2008)

butcher said:


> sane people still do use mercury to recover gold, and they use cyanide and Aqua regia ect, they just learn to do it safely, copper can be just as poisionous as mercury. it just doesn't have the stigma attatched to it.



Here we go again with mercury :roll: 
Stigma be damned. There is NO good reason for any refiner or miner to use mercury. Period. I worked as an analytical chemist for years looking at toxic metal accumulations in fish and wildlife so I know a little about mercury toxicity. It has no role in human or animal metabolism and is an insidious cumulative toxin and teratogen. It permenantly damages the nervous system and brain in particular. I know of a photographer who had his mind and health ruined by inadvertant inhalation of mercury vapors while replicating 19'th century photographic processes, and he was using good safeguards. Just not good enough. I seriously doubt anyone on this forum, myself included, has a lab with sufficent safeguards in place to work with mercury safely. And even if they did... what's the point? It's not like mercury is able to do anything any better than a host of other processes and reagents that are far less toxic.


----------



## butcher (Nov 10, 2008)

well Ive got plenty of it my teeth put there years ago.
dont wish to argu as I do agree with you it is extremely dangerous in the enviroment and to humans ect.with such a low boiling point. I am not as educated as you. but I do know it is a natural element and can be handled and used industrially used if we would do it properly. just as radioactive material can be. if we would use it with education and common sense, argue if you wish.
I am stuborn as as mule and probably read most every argument you have but still believe what I do.


----------



## Lou (Nov 10, 2008)

I should hope to God I work in a lab equipped to deal with it. Probably 100+ lbs scattered about in everything from manometers, to diffusion pumps, to gas bubblers.

I can give a darn about working with the metal as long as it stays where I put it. It's when you spill it and it skitters and scatters all over, that's when problems arise and you have a contamination problem.


----------



## jsargent (Nov 10, 2008)

Didn't mean to get crosswise with ya Butcher. I'm sure you take every precaution around mercury as you should and you have the experience and common sense to handle it with relative safety. 
Problem is all the readers out there who lack such experience who read somewhere about old-time miners capturing mercury in baked potatoes and other such nonsense and thinking that hey it can't be that dangerous so I'll just break open a couple of industrial thermometers and mix it with some of that black sand they collected while at a GPAA get together and suddenly you have a real contamination problem.


----------



## jsargent (Nov 10, 2008)

Lou said:


> I can give a darn about working with the metal as long as it stays where I put it. It's when you spill it and it skitters and scatters all over, that's when problems arise and you have a contamination problem.



That's the problem with mercury... it hardly ever stays where you put it. Even if it's just sitting there it's producing vapors and that's where the real danger lies. But hey, it's in all kinds of equipment you use and recycle so you gotta be equipped to deal with it as I know you are.


----------



## butcher (Nov 10, 2008)

Jsargent, Dont get me wrong I do agree with you, it should not be used by the backyard hobbyist or backyard miner, especially without uderstanding it, that said, I also do not think we should be using many of the common chemicals we do and dumping them into the sewers or putting on the lawns, and back to the rivers or wells we drink from look at all the cleaners, medicines, industrial products we use they dont just disapear when flushed ect. our food and I do not believe should not have been modified, by breeding or genetically altering as we have(and especilly how they are going to be),we sould not be using the chemical drugs we do, and hormones ect, we should not be preserving our food the way we do. if we didnt we wouldnt have the population we have now,I also would like to live before the 1800's, I could rant and rave for along time.
mercury is naturally in the ground and in our rivers flooding ect will stir this up humans,(even the dinasor) and animals I am sure have always had it in there system to some degree. we dont need to add more of it to ours by gold.
and by the way I dont use mercury to recover gold, but I do recover Mercury, having more than a half gallon of it so far (that is not in our drinking water and soil). storeing mercury keep water layer on top of it,
and if a miner insists on using it I will tell him he must retort it not breath it now,or for years to come (from fumes evaporating slowly for years)as he would if spilled in his carpet ect.
if we keep posting on this maybe we ought to move to friendly discussions,

I Totally Agree with you mercury should not be normally used. but also it shoild not be feared to the point we dont use it.

and by the way probably more of it is probably thrown away as light bulbs, than the uneducated miner.


----------



## butcher (Nov 10, 2008)

lets educate ourselves on mercury we will be rcovering it in our processes, and help to educate the world about it.
not fear it and quit using it industrially. :wink:


----------



## makmur mulia (Jul 3, 2009)

Basically i think it is smelting, directly. Say if you have highly concentrated ore, instead of amalgamation (using Hg), it's possible to smelt it directly. First you pan the ore, pick the gold (concentrated), add borax, then smelt it. Get the button accordingly. Try this link: http://www.geus.dk/program-areas/common/int_ssm_fact_sheet_07.pdf. This particular innovation is intendedly to replace Hg in artisanal miners practice, mainly in developing countries.


----------



## Mack777 (Jul 18, 2009)

Hi Guys- How many Dentists still use "amalgam" (sneaky codeword for Mercury with silver which is 50% Mercury) in their practice? I don't know of any and most are holding their breath to let their old patients die and remove the liability issue.

The max allowable mercury is a very few parts per million in our food... amalgam is 500,000 parts per million mercury.

Mercury fillings were first used in France and interestingly enough the first cases of Nerve diseases occurred in those patients in about 10 years or so.

Take the mercury fillings out of your mouth if you can still think straight enough to do it... The body is a wonderful machine and will try to isolate and remove toxins given help with cleanses and certain foods... and lots of water and ionic minerals. 

This one lady fed her husband rat poison for years in his food. She gave him a little bit at a time until he became paralyzed. The hospital found the huge level of arsenic in his body, investigated the home, found the poison in the pantry, prosecuted the lady for attempted murder. He is a vegetable, she is in prison.

Thanx to all for the wisdom, advice, chemistry, processes, humor and freely given experience.


----------



## Harold_V (Jul 19, 2009)

Mack777 said:


> Take the mercury fillings out of your mouth if you can still think straight enough to do it...


I'm 70 years old and have a mouth full of mercury fillings. I am also of sound mind, and as of the moment, I am in good health, if you can overlook a little arthritis. 

Removing mercury from one's mouth is a knee jerk reaction to hype, nothing more. 

Understand I'm not promoting the use of mercury----but millions of people have lived perfectly well with mercury fillings in their mouths. Perhaps a select few have had problems----that I don't dispute. 

Want to put this matter in perspective?

Smoking tobacco is a known killer. Not just from cancer, but a few hundred ways. 

How many still smoke? Wouldn't we be far better served to concentrate on eliminating tobacco? Everyone is affected by its consumption. 

Harold


----------



## butcher (Jul 19, 2009)

I would think there would be more danger removing it, from your mouth, besides just getting teeth pulled. What about medicine, it is used to preserve vaccine for children, tons of it is in the air we breath from burning of fuel, forest fires and volcanoes, has always been in the air, ( in air it will circulate earth two time before settling), (I have heard the coal and fuel industry can generate 75 tons of it a year in our air), dinasoars breathed it, in most water,rivers lakes and oceans naturally,I believe if we dont breath concentrated fumes, or it is in the food cain methylmercury (preditor fish eating a biological form of mercury and we eat too many of these fish) ,our bodies can handle what is in natural things, unless weakened state of health already.for some reason we have made BOOGIE MEN out of some things and many other more dangerous substances are not even mentioned, and even added to owr food supply? I just do not understand it.


----------



## pinwheel (Apr 10, 2010)

I am interested in mercury and gold. Does anyone here experiment along the lines of the red lion and ancient alchemy? Does anyone here collect 16th century books on the subject?


----------



## Harold_V (Apr 10, 2010)

pinwheel said:


> I am interested in mercury and gold. Does anyone here experiment along the lines of the red lion and ancient alchemy? Does anyone here collect 16th century books on the subject?


It's unclear to me what you hold interesting. If reading alchemy books for pleasure is your concern, I heartily endorse the idea. However, if the red lion and ancient alchemy revolve around creating gold-------and your question relates to how many pursue that avenue---I have to say, you've likely come to the wrong place. Science has a clear understanding of how the elements are created---none of which is being accomplished in home labs, and does not relate to mercury. Mercury, for use with gold, is strictly as a recovery process, and even that is frowned upon. Here, we are, for the most part, men of science. We apply tried and proven methods for recovering and purifying precious metals. 

Harold


----------



## machiavelli976 (Apr 11, 2010)

pinwheel, have a research about the experiences of Nagaoka and you will understand a way to get gold from mercury. extremely expensive but.


----------



## pinwheel (Apr 11, 2010)

I will look into this further. One point of interest is how to accomplish one of the things he did in the experiment:

He noted that, "In order to be sure of transmutation, repeated purification of Hg by distilling in vacuum at temperatures below 200o C is essential."

How does one safely distill Hg?

My interest is not transmutation although that is interesting, but rather learning how to use balanced metals to elongate life. We all live or die based on the amount of metals in our bodies. Elements is the proper term here. I think that the aid of a real chemist/scientist is required for safety at the very least.


----------



## butcher (Apr 11, 2010)

mercury retort.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=mercury+retort&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=


----------

