# Gold Filled nitric acid saving process



## 24kgold (Apr 20, 2013)

I decided to aqua regia my gold filled without using nitric to dissolve base metals first.

- Aqua regia gold filled all but stainless pins dissolved
- added 4-5 times as much water and filtered solution
-Added smb and let everything settle over night 
- decanted not filtered into bucket
-wash with water twice decant 
-use boiling water and add to settled metals, goes yellow right away i think it is iron chloride did not test in any way positive for gold with stannous chloride.
-wash with boiling water a couple times which is great because it settles in 10-20 sec till yellow goes faint.
-add your nitric acid to boiling water wash with metals, dissolves base metals withing 5 min, more surface area of base metals faster dissolving because they are dust size.
- wash with boiling water till clear 
-aqua regia metal left in solution which will turn bright clear yellow test positive for gold.
- add water,filter, smb, decant, regular routine.

For the first time i got calculated weight of gold in gold filled, i washed with cold water first to get as much acid out because hot water might make the acid dissolve the gold.
i used 1/4 of nitric acid i usually do and this method is faster and easy for me.


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## Palladium (Apr 20, 2013)

Where did you learn that method? Do you see the faults?


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## 24kgold (Apr 20, 2013)

i usually do it the Nitric dissolving base metal method first but this way works better for me. i do quite a bit of gf about 20-50 pounds per week so im not new to it, i just tried this way works faster and alot less nitric acid for me i used 1/4 nitric of what i usually use. first time i have gotten calculated amount of gold. 
I just experiment with small batches, decided to post the one that works best for me. i use sodium cyanide, takes too long, and harder to work with, hcl and peroxide and bubbled also takes too long. nitric base metals uses too much nitric acid and u are still left with a slight dirty aqua regia solution after.
For me aqua regia first works best.


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## Palladium (Apr 20, 2013)

I run 20-50 lb lots in one day and believe you me their is no short cut. How can you say that this method leads to a cleaner ar solution than base metals removal first? You saved 25% of your nitric use? I give $3 a gallon for nitric in bulk. Nitric consumption should be the least of your worries. You should never do a nitric wash after ar without incineration first. What about your hcl washes? I didn't see those listed. Then the problems with all them base metals and your gold dissolving at the same time, plus the overall volume size of the solution you are dropping from. What about silver chlorides from the silver in the GF? If you used nitric you could cement silver as metal and save yourself 2-3 added steps. What about filtering all that mess? I could go on and on about why this is not a method that will yield good results. I'm not trying to jump on you here, but i don't want anybody else reading this and thinking this is an approved method of refining. It is set up to fail. I've gotten GF to a science. Their is no other way!


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## Palladium (Apr 20, 2013)

On an interesting side note: If your doing larger lots of gold filled you can find all kinds of little goodies after the nitric bath. I have customers who are good about knowing their materials and then their are those that buy GF over the counter for 30 cents a gram and never test what they assume to be GF anyway. I just finished up a lot (20 lbs), well actually right now, that had several pieces of karat jewelry in the mix that wasn't marked. Had i used ar first i would have never known it. I place the GF in a stainless pot and add nitric without heat. The reaction will generate enough heat. Wait until it slows down and add more nitric. Their comes a point where you can tell the reaction is slowing down. At this point all your thin and reactive metals have dissolved and only thicker pieces are left. I place it on about med heat and add nitric in small increments, considering the size of lots i do it's usually a quart of nitric, and place a lid on it. When the red cloud of death stops your good to go and with very little excess nitric so cementation of your silver is easy. After the 24 hour nitric bath all i'm left with is Karat, foils, and stainless. I have a trick for the stainless part to. From there it is ar twice with proper washing procedures that don't include nitric. Total kart discovered in this lot was nearly $500. :mrgreen:


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## 24kgold (Apr 21, 2013)

i dont live in the states so i pay $100 a gallon, there is no wholesale of it here, so i have to cut down on nitric i know you are right, i got lucky with the first one dont think i will do it again, just tried with a small batch and did not work out so good, guess we have to learn the hard way some times. u jinxed me lol.


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## Palladium (Apr 21, 2013)

$100 a gallon. :shock: 
I see your point!


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## lazersteve (Apr 21, 2013)

I've processed GF by many methods, including one similar to the one in the opening post. I currently use a hybrid version of several reactions, depending on the type of GF being run (pocket watches, GF glasses, or mixed GF scrap).

I'm curious how large of a container each of you are using? I process loads of GF also and my 15 gallon poly drum is never large enough to hold enough acid to dissolve the entire batch in one pass. I have to empty the acid and start over with fresh acid two or three times each batch to get it all dissolved. With each acid addition the solution boils furiously so I leave plenty of head room in the reaction vessel to accommodate this. How are you guys handling the large volume of acid required and the head room issue?

What are you guys doing about all the base metal salts that form during the dissolution?

How long does a typical 30 pound batch take you from the day the GF hits the acid to the day you have a gold bar?

Steve


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## necromancer (Apr 21, 2013)

there should be no fighting about the process.

post your process for all to learn from


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## Palladium (Apr 21, 2013)

Me i use 5 and 10 gallon stainless steel cook pots. I've actually looked at cutting a 55 gallon stainless steel drum in two and using those over a gas cooker.
I usually run 5 lb at a time in the 5 gallon and 10 lbs in the 10 gallon ones. From start to finish the nitric bath takes 24 hrs and i never have to empty any solutions and refill. It may get a little rowdy but i usually don't have a boil over problem this way either. I've found the important part of the nitric acid removal step is to add your water first and not add any more after that. I add about 1 1/2 gallons to the 5's and about 2-3 gallons to the 10 gallon pots. If you add water after it starts you will have silver chlorides. Always take the time to make sure as much base metals are removed as possible is a very import step to cleaner solutions and less problems later on. Incineration first and doing it this way my solutions are almost always easy to filter and i have no type of salt issues. I use a large spaghetti stainer and i use to use coffee filters but now i just take two bounty paper towels and place them opposite each other in the strainer. I filter the solution through that and it catches any small foils. The larger foils are left in the bottom and i scoop them out with a stainless spoon. What's left i rinse into the strainer to be collected. When the strainer drips down over nite i take the filter, incinerate it, and add it to the foils. From there it is on to ar. Start to finish i can do upwards of 50 lbs in separate lots in 4 days. I actually find it is more work dealing with the waste solutions than it is just processing the gold. The wastes solutions are a chore in themselves. Gold filled is a nasty job all the way around compared to other types of refining. I don't distinguish between different types of GF. When it comes in the door it get logged in weighted and on to nitric. I give it a quick once over to spot check it, but other than that glasses, watches, pins, it don't matter all go nitric ar route. If theirs stainless their then so be it. I can't take the time to pick it out. It gets dealt with in ar. It's a little pain in the rear but i can deal with it. I have all my customers clean the gold filled they send me. I make them cut the glasses and prep all the materials before it gets here. That's not my just in my business model and i have found that the customers don't object to it either. It just makes my job easier. I charge different rates for different items and they learn that by segregation and cleaning they can get better rates. All that cleaning cost somebody wither it be me or them. I will be happy to do it but it cost. I give my customers plenty of lead way though and don't enforce those rules unless i just have to. All in all i'll take all the gold filled i can get my hands on. :mrgreen:


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## 24kgold (Apr 21, 2013)

Well to conserve on nitric acid and to process large batches (12 pounds) i dont go over that usually, use 4 5000 ml conical flask a stopper and a hose in top in which the nitrogen dioxide gas (red gas of death) travels through from the first hose to the second conical flask where the hose is submerged in the water which turns back into nitric acid less concentrated version dissolved base metals in that and produces nitrogen dioxide again with another hose going to the third till the last conical flask that i have condenser on that i spray spurts of cold water in the top too convert as much as nitrogen dioxide to nitric acid. 


after i let settle and decant into my settling bucket i use straight nitric acid to redissolve the salts but i dont think or dont know how to get rid of all the salts that form. 
so from 30 pounds to melt usually 3 days because of filtering <---- my worst enemy

nitric metals again till clean and usual routine from there. 
i have a 500 gallon stainless steel boiler that i use for making white rum that i am tempted to use for gold filled nitric, i wont though. 

oh yea i put a stainless steel pipe in the hose that is submerged in the water so i don't melt the hose.


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## lazersteve (Apr 21, 2013)

So neither one of you mentioned the Rhodium foils from white GF and how you deal with them?

I separate all types of GF and the various white verse yellow golds. I process only white GF together to recover the Rh foils in the nitric acid stages. Each pass of nitric acid frees up the Rh foils which are collected as the saturated liquids are filtered. After two passes the Rh is all but gone. The metals that remain after each stage are encrusted with a layer of blue, green, clear, brown, or white crystals that prevent the gold from being poured out with each solution change. When I get enough Rh foils saved up, I process them to purify the Rh.

I have been running GF lots of greater than 5 pounds each for several years now and I can't recall a single time that I did not encounter a salt of some form or another during the process. I use lab grade 68% HNO3 and tap water. I incinerate all of my GF before processing.

I remove all stainless from each batch before it is run.

Steve


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## Palladium (Apr 21, 2013)

I never worry about secondary metals like silver, rhodium, pt, palladium though i have made consideration for the silver recovery part. My primary concern is the gold. Anything after that is just gravy and will either get caught in the stock pot or will be left as filter residues such as the rh foils to be processed at a later date. I make my money off the gold and the rest is a saving plan at a later date. Thank Harold for that one. I still have evry filter paper and stock pot residue i have every processed. A point to add here proper storage of these items are essential. Filter papers represent a very unstable fire risk. When i first started doing gold filled i had a problem with salts because of the concentration factor, but since i learned to add enough water before hand and balance my loads i don't have salt problems, haven't had in awhile. I noticed you said each pass. I only do one pass and it's done. I use to have that problem when i first started trying to cram all the materials into one lot in one vessel. I quickly learned that the process goes so much smoother when i take a large lot and break it down into smaller lots the way i am. I have more control over the parameters running small lots to comprise a big lot than i do with just big lots. Seems my nitric consumption goes down also. I don't know the science behind it but it seems my nitric goes further. I contribute it to the water absorbing it i guess. I use the Polar Ware brand of kettles. The 5 gallon one's run about $50 new $35 used and the 10 Gallon one's are $90 new and $50-65 used. Here's my guy for stainless http://www.ebay.com/sch/513fitworks/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2654


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## 24kgold (Apr 21, 2013)

I have only ever gotten 3 pieces of white GF i just weighed them and they are 32 DWT i always assumed they where silver filled, how do i check to see if its not silver but white GF without dissolving in nitric acid and finding out they are just silver filled. I guess a quick rub on stone put some 18k acid and see if it turns a quick flash of blue/white for silver?


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## lazersteve (Apr 22, 2013)

I process multiple batches (usually 4 to 6 at a time ) and every batch forms salts that are *not soluble in water*. It's much easier to sort the Rh from the gold and silver before anything is dissolved. Adding everything to the stockpot just postpones your headache to a later date. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

The tricks to safe storage of filters is two fold:

1) Properly rinse all filters so they are not colored by solution before proceeding.
2) Burn the papers before they are stored.

There is no need to use distilled water when refining gold, unless your house water is contaminated with lots of iron (leaves a red-brown stain wherever it dries). Distilled is only required when working with silver.

Steve


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## Palladium (Apr 22, 2013)

Well i can see now that i should have just left this question alone. Wait! That's right i was the one teaching and you ask the questions. You know the funny thing is i have taught two members from the forum, established refines i might add, how to do this process. Both parties were experiencing problems like you speak of. EXACT same problems i might add. They will tell you today that if anybody else tried to teach them to do GF any other way they would call them a liar. I didn't learn this just yesterday myself either. It took me making countless mistakes and trial and error before i finally got it right. I remember telling someone one time that if they tried a stainless silver cell they would throw rocks at graphite. Of course he was reluctant to try something new and deviate from the normal, but after he did he couldn't be happier he did decide to try something new. You come on here and talk about salts, Poly drums, how long does it take to run a batch, all these are questions i would expect a refiner who has these processes down pat to know. We wont even talk about the recommendation to use hcl/cl on gold filled and how flawed that is. I even pointed out how flawed that thinking is on the other thread, to which i notice you didn't argue. If you had your process down so good why would you ask those questions? Would it be to find fault in whatever i post and then perceive to teach me something? I don't think so! Especially when you seem not to have the answers yourself. Then you say distilled water doesn't make a difference. I take it that was in reference to the other thread where i told a gentleman that it only makes a difference in karat refining with inquarting or in the final steps to achieve gold above 999. Yes it does make a difference and all you have to do is have experience to know that. I see it right their in the beaker and i know my eyes are not lying to me. I see a lot of flaws in your processes and teaching but i don't get in the middle of it because even though i know better if i try to teach someone different and it's not the Lazer Steve way then for some reason it doesn't fit the board. About like you have been trying to get my extra forum accounts banned because you don't want to be sending some of your mysterious " P.M. sent " messages to the wrong person and having that information exposed for what it is. Yes i know about all of it! Their ain't much happens here or behind the scenes that i don't know about. I've been here almost since day one and have fought any and all threats that i may perceive towards this forum. Why would you want to ban my other id's? Everybody that's been here knows about my id's and what i use them for. I haven't heard of a problem from them. Even Harold who i have had ban me in the past and knows i use alternate id's. Nope not the first peep! So why you? Interesting question ain't it? 
If your teaching is flawed then i will point it out, but your not going to sit here and tell me that it doesn't work and isn't the most efficient method when i know different from personal experience. Fishing or separating Rh foils from multiple gallon solutions after multiple passes with nitric and this and that. That don't even make since when i can gather them up more efficiently and process them from the residues. How much work would that take for a payoff verses the other way? Yeahhhhh...... I'm good!


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 22, 2013)

This is like watching my parents fight.  

Please, for the good of the forum family, don't fight in front of us kids.

Dave


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## Palladium (Apr 22, 2013)

Oh it's not a fight. It's black and white. If anybody see anything wrong please point it out. To not call the behavior out would only serve to reinforce that behavior. Just because he holds the role of Moderator makes him no different than anyone else. I'm good with what i said.


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## lazersteve (Apr 23, 2013)

Palladium said:


> Well i can see now that i should have just left this question alone. Wait! That's right i was the one teaching and you ask the questions. You know the funny thing is i have taught two members from the forum, established refines i might add, how to do this process. Both parties were experiencing problems like you speak of. EXACT same problems i might add. They will tell you today that if anybody else tried to teach them to do GF any other way they would call them a liar. I didn't learn this just yesterday myself either. It took me making countless mistakes and trial and error before i finally got it right. I remember telling someone one time that if they tried a stainless silver cell they would throw rocks at graphite. Of course he was reluctant to try something new and deviate from the normal, but after he did he couldn't be happier he did decide to try something new. You come on here and talk about salts, Poly drums, how long does it take to run a batch, all these are questions i would expect a refiner who has these processes down pat to know. We wont even talk about the recommendation to use hcl/cl on gold filled and how flawed that is. I even pointed out how flawed that thinking is on the other thread, to which i notice you didn't argue. If you had your process down so good why would you ask those questions? Would it be to find fault in whatever i post and then perceive to teach me something? I don't think so! Especially when you seem not to have the answers yourself. Then you say distilled water doesn't make a difference. I take it that was in reference to the other thread where i told a gentleman that it only makes a difference in karat refining with inquarting or in the final steps to achieve gold above 999. Yes it does make a difference and all you have to do is have experience to know that. I see it right their in the beaker and i know my eyes are not lying to me. I see a lot of flaws in your processes and teaching but i don't get in the middle of it because even though i know better if i try to teach someone different and it's not the Lazer Steve way then for some reason it doesn't fit the board. About like you have been trying to get my extra forum accounts banned because you don't want to be sending some of your mysterious " P.M. sent " messages to the wrong person and having that information exposed for what it is. Yes i know about all of it! Their ain't much happens here or behind the scenes that i don't know about. I've been here almost since day one and have fought any and all threats that i may perceive towards this forum. Why would you want to ban my other id's? Everybody that's been here knows about my id's and what i use them for. I haven't heard of a problem from them. Even Harold who i have had ban me in the past and knows i use alternate id's. Nope not the first peep! So why you? Interesting question ain't it?
> If your teaching is flawed then i will point it out, but your not going to sit here and tell me that it doesn't work and isn't the most efficient method when i know different from personal experience. Fishing or separating Rh foils from multiple gallon solutions after multiple passes with nitric and this and that. That don't even make since when i can gather them up more efficiently and process them from the residues. How much work would that take for a payoff verses the other way? Yeahhhhh...... I'm good!



You've lost me again Ralph.

I'm speechless. 

Steve


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## butcher (Apr 23, 2013)

Some things would be better discussed in private between individuals, where it does not disrupt, or set bad examples for our other members.


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