# chlorine leach recipe problems



## captain1 (Nov 25, 2009)

Hi I am stumped on how to leach gold from an ore deposit in Utah. I have read several things about this process and yet I am still stumbling on getting the gold out using chlorine. I got a recipe to make leach from pool stuff(calcium Hypoclorate). Yet I noticed most of the guys are using a 4 HCL to 1 clorox. I have no HCL called for in mine. However I am supposed to keep the PH up at 8.0-8.5 to leach well. Not sure with the HCL mix if ph matters at all. I use HCL before I leach to knock out the Iron and sulfates first. Wondering if my mix will not leach right. Doesn't seem to be working. I need a good recipe to work with my production efforts. Here is the one I am using know. 1 gallon of water, 1/4 cup pool stuff, caustic soda to bring in the solution. The PH falls in around 8.5. I put this on my concentrated material. Two gallons of cleaned ore and 2 gallons of solution. I mix and let stand for 24 hours. Then I filter it clean. Then precipitate the solution using caustic soda. Why? this drops everything PH any salts and silica. My solution ends up totally dead after. And then I end up with glass when I try to melt it. I got some stump out to try and precipitate with. But I am not sure it will work with my mix. I ordered some ferrous to precipitate with. I just hope it works. Could use some solid advise on my problem leaching. There are several different ways to utilize chlorine leaching. Just want one to work.


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## gorfman6154 (Nov 25, 2009)

Captain1, welcome.
If you can post some photos of your ore, Richard36, our resident "Rock Guy" 8) , or other members might be able to identify the type of deposit and the best way to proceed. 
Also if you can give more info on how you are preparing your ore. Such as, how fine are you grinding, to get to free gold, are you roasting your ore, assay :?: , sampling procedure. The more info you give, the more helpful they can be.

Good luck, Gorfman


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## captain1 (Nov 27, 2009)

Thanks for the reply on my post. Still waiting on my assay to get back. From history of the area and from what I have been sampling. I have lots of Hematite. Magnetite,Mica, Pyrite, Copper, Silver, lead, small amounts of Palladium, Platinum, gold and lots of fine quartz. I started out working with a spiral wheel and blue bowl. Found everything was extremely fine. I used mercury a bit and found I was loosing lots of ultra fine gold. I have screen my material down to several different sizes the smallest was below 100 mess. I have ground some of the material also. I found it seems I have good amounts of gold in each size I screened below 30 mesh. Not much to pick out. I was able to pull around 4 ounces of gold every 5 gallons of concentrate. I stopped sluicing it. And doubled my take within 10- 12 gallons of just screened down to 30 mesh material. That proved I was blowing lots of ultra fine gold out the back of my sluice. Mercury is hard to work with. It gets every where. I am treating my ore with Muratic acid for 24 hours. This is all mixed well in my cement mixer. I found it works well to knock out allot of the junk in the ore. I have roasted some to. Seemed no different from the Acid treatment. So I set out to leach my material. Trying to get out of the old miner style thinking. And get more gold and recover other precious metals to. In my research on how to leach. I found this forum and was blown away at the stuff most of the guys are leaching. Just doesn't seem like leaching my ore should be that difficult to work. Yet I keep stumbling through each process. I think most of the problems have been miss information. I know my precipitant is wrong. The lye precipitant drops everything out. And destroys the leaching solution. That's why I burn silica and salt every time. I used the stannious test on my solution. Shows Canary yellow most of the time. Yet when I drop it with lye. The bottom dirt looking stuff shows black. Maybe I have lots of palladium, that it masks my results. I am excited to get the ferrous to drop with. I hope that will just drop the gold. And not all the other stuff. Then I will look at testing and dropping Palladium and maybe Platinum also. Just figured, if I am going to do the work why not get all I can out of it as fast, and as easy as possible. And leaching seemed the logical choice. Since I am out of work now. Why not do this for a living. That's what people did to survive during the last depression. If I can get a good recipe for success with this venture. I think I will do very well at this once I get through all the processes correctly. So any Ideas will be very help full to me. Thanks Kirt


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## Anonymous (Nov 27, 2009)

What part of the universe are you in? Lots of palladium, and platinum? most places thats not likely. Now about your leaching/ore.
Google "textbook on the metallurgy of gold" and "textbook on the metallurgy of common metals" these are old, but, they have lots of information for ores from mining.

If you have a leach of mixed stuff, put a piece of scrap copper in it - to replace out all metals that are more nobel than copper, ie silver, gold etc.

Or if copper is short, put, a piece of scrap iron in. This will drop copper, silver, etc. Once you have these metals you can melt and assay to sell.

Jim


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## manorman (Nov 27, 2009)

The black mud you see could very well be your Gold, very fine gold can appears as a fine black powder.
Mike


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## Anonymous (Nov 27, 2009)

Sodium Hydroxide precipates metals as oxides so the mud could be anything. If you use lye, it should only be to lower ph so you would not need excess chemicals to drop the precious metals.

Jim


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## gorfman6154 (Nov 27, 2009)

captain1 said:


> I got a recipe to make leach from pool stuff(calcium Hypoclorate).



captain1, is that recipe from goldmineworld, homemade halox leach :?: . If it is, they use Hcl with the Calcium Hypoclorate.

Gorfman


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## Anonymous (Nov 27, 2009)

Heres a chlorine leach for you. CaCl2 + CaOClH + H2SO4, this is from the textbook on the metallurgy of gold and was used in lead lined vats to generate chlorine and to leach ores. 

Also, just a note, most pool chlorine is not calcium hypochlorite anymore, make sure you check what you are using.

Jim


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## captain1 (Nov 28, 2009)

Thanks Guys. Yes I am using calcium hypochlorite. Not sure where the recipe came from. My dad has been working on this project with me. And I figured that the Lye precipitant was wrong. Working on trying to get stump out to try and precipitate with. I heard it is rather ph sensitive though. Will it even work with my leach? I have ordered some ferrous sulfate to use. Heard it will work. I think with the way I am pretreating my ore with acid I should not have much copper or silver left. Maybe I am wrong on this. Sounds like I need to do some more research on leaching and metallurgy. And yes where this ore is coming from is a very rare find.


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## nickvc (Nov 28, 2009)

hydrochloric wont affect silver or copper in metallic state,if you want those out you need nitric but that will take the palladium too,to quote Harold V read C.M.Hokes book its here on the forum for free as a download.


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## Harold_V (Nov 28, 2009)

It can't be stated too often that processing ores with acids is generally not a good idea. The reaction of the ore with acid tends to make consumption high, so it becomes cost prohibitive, to say nothing of the huge volume of contaminated fluid that must be handled.

The notion that ores can be processed in small volumes at a gain is one that needs to be examined closely. Unless the ore in question assays quite high, it is beyond reason to expect that any gold that might be present could be extracted at a profit. Further, unless the head assay indicates a serious concentration, so little would be recovered from a small lot that it may not even be visible after precipitation. 

The one question that should always be asked in a case such as this is what does the assay indicate? How much gold would one expect from a given amount?

Harold


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 28, 2009)

nickvc said:


> hydrochloric wont affect silver or _*copper*_ in metallic state,if you want those out you need nitric but that will take the palladium too,to quote Harold V read C.M.Hokes book its here on the forum for free as a download.



Check your post about the copper. Satement is incorrect.


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## Rhodium (Nov 28, 2009)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> nickvc said:
> 
> 
> > hydrochloric wont affect silver or _*copper*_ in metallic state,if you want those out you need nitric but that will take the palladium too,to quote Harold V read C.M.Hokes book its here on the forum for free as a download.
> ...



I think he's right. Copper metal won't dissolved to amount to much, but copper oxide will.


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## butcher (Nov 28, 2009)

copper is below Hydrogen in activity series.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 28, 2009)

Ok I feel we are off here some how. This thread started about ore and the removal or material from this ore.



> by captain1 on Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:48 pm
> 
> Hi I am stumped on how to leach gold from an ore deposit in Utah




I responded to a quote by nickvc in reference to copper in a metalic state. I am taking it that he is refering to copper in a refined form not in an ore form.





> by Barren Realms 007 on Sat Nov 28, 2009 5:35 pm
> 
> nickvc wrote:
> hydrochloric wont affect silver or copper in metallic state,if you want those out you need nitric but that will take the palladium too,to quote Harold V read C.M.Hokes book its here on the forum for free as a download.
> ...



Rhodium puts out some good posts and I don't want to disagree with him because I am sure I am going to be made a fool of some how.




> by Rhodium on Sat Nov 28, 2009 6:57 pm
> 
> I think he's right. Copper metal won't dissolved to amount to much, but copper oxide will.



I don't know squat about copper ore. I have seen HCL eat: alluminum, copper, brass, steel, stainless steel, titanium. I was only commenting about it eating copper in a metallic form as was stated. Now if HCL will not eat copper in a metallic state how are we using it to remove copper?


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## Rhodium (Nov 29, 2009)

Hcl is a non-oxidizing acid. You can't dissolve the metal in acid directly because it is noble, below hydrogen.
But Copper Oxide will dissolve in Hcl. When you add H2o2 it forms a layer of copper oxide on the copper which allows the Hcl to attack it.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 29, 2009)

Rhodium said:


> Hcl is a non-oxidizing acid. You can't dissolve the metal in acid directly because it is noble, below hydrogen.
> But Copper Oxide will dissolve in Hcl. When you add H2o2 it forms a layer of copper oxide on the copper which allows the Hcl to attack it.



And what if you don't add the H2o2?


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 29, 2009)

Ralph is right. A simplified explanation is that, dissolving any metal requires two things, oxidation and some component that will combine with the metal in solution. The Cl- will combine with the copper but, alone, the HCl won't oxidize the copper. Therefore, you need to add an oxidizer, such as hydrogen peroxide, chlorine (bleach), or copper chloride to dissolve the copper. You could also bubble air through it.

On the other side of the coin, gold won't dissolve in nitric acid. Although nitric is an oxidizing acid, it won't dissolve gold since gold doesn't form a nitrate, except under unusual conditions. When you add HCl to the nitric to form aqua regia, you provide Cl-, which combines with the gold to form a complex ion in solution. It's a little more complicated than that but, with aqua regia and gold, both sets of dissolving criteria are met.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 29, 2009)

Ok I got that and like I said I would be made a fool of.  

But what starts the reaction with just HCL?


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 29, 2009)

> But what starts the reaction with just HCL?


I'm no chemist but I would guess that dissolved oxygen could start it. This would dissolve a little copper to produce a little copper chloride which would act as an oxidizing agent to dissolve a little more. All in all, though, I would think it would be a very slow process.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 29, 2009)

goldsilverpro said:


> > But what starts the reaction with just HCL?
> 
> 
> I'm no chemist but I would guess that dissolved oxygen could start it. This would dissolve a little copper to produce a little copper chloride which would act as an oxidizing agent to dissolve more and the rate would build. All in all, though, it would be a slow process.



Ok I can go along with that with pins in a crock pot with HCL and a bubbler, the oxygen can get in thru the bubbling action.

But how does the disolved oxygen get in with HCL and CPU's or pins on a hot plate with no bubbler? Is the HCL grabbing oxygen from the air just thru surface contact? And if that is so then if we put a top on our container to where no more oxygen can get in after the initial oxygen is depleated then will the reaction stop?


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## Anonymous (Nov 29, 2009)

Copper that has been in air has a oxide coating however thin it may be. H+ and Cl- are dissoiated in water forming H3O+ and Cl-
the Cl- can react with copper(s) and put it into solution. This will be a slow reaction since the copper is not actually replacing the hydrogen.
I also think the oxider actually may oxidize the insoluble CuCl which would form on the surface of the copper allowing it to go into solution and make available more copper to the chlorine and that could be why it goes faster when there is an oxidizer present.

Thats my take on it. I however am only a basement chemist, as they say, I know just enough to get myself in trouble.
I am sure that Lou or one of the other "Real" chemist will eventually enlighten us.

Jim


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## aussco999 (Nov 30, 2009)

Hey Captain Kirt:

After reading your posts a couple of times, I'm guessing your "ore" is from a dredging operation, and I want to congratulate you on 4 oz. gold recovery for every 5 gallon bucket of cons. If all things are relevant, that sounds like a good number. The question I'm not sure of is, exactly what are you trying to leach, the head material going into the dredge, the tails coming out of the dredge, the 5 gallon bucket of cons or the recovered gold?

A chlorine leach is an effective and powerful method to convert several elements to a higher valance, but it can sometimes be a bit confusing to the neophyte chemist. The ideal chlorine leach converts molecular chlorine to nascent (new born) chlorine, then back to molecular chlorine for continuous reuse. This is normally done in a nanosecond using a secondary acid/oxidizer, like nitric acid.

It's during the nascent phase that the chlorine attacks (puts into solution) the metal. Unfortunately, the nascent phase is not gold specific. On the EM Series there are several metal that will go into solution before gold and can/will use up your leach potential. Keep in mind that a lot of good info on this forum relates to some form of already refined gold and may not work as well on your material. But, the basic info that Harold, GSP, Steve, 4Metals and all the others, keep trying to pound into everyone's head is to get rid of, or control the base metal contaminates, still applies to ores.

My expertise is in the mining and metals extraction from placer/hard-rock ores on a large scale (XXX TPH), so I don't normally refine the metals beyond the first pyrometallurgy pour. Maybe I can help get your ore to a better leach stage, and then some of the other forum members can take over for the refining. You mentioned using a roasting procedure. Does your material contain any sulfides or tellurides that need roasting? And, what exactly is being assayed, heads, tails, cons or the gold, and what type of assay are being done?

I always do a lot of homework on my mining projects to try eliminating as many of the problems before they happen, so I may ask a lot of question before I can pass along any helpful info. In regards to a safety issue, I will say stay away from the muriatic (HCl) acid and mercury combination, as they can produce some nasty chemical mixtures that will stunt your longevity. Maybe you could post a start-to-finish flow chart of your operations, up to the "it-ain't-working" point. There might be some earlier steps in your process that can be changed to improve the gold recovery ratio.

And, don't get discouraged. From the numbers, it sounds like you might be on a good enough mining project to make a living.

Good luck,

John


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## Rhodium (Nov 30, 2009)

John, What is your area of expertise ?

Thanks.


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## Harold_V (Nov 30, 2009)

Rhodium said:


> John, What is your area of expertise ?



The fourth paragraph of his post starts out saying "My expertise is in the mining and metals extraction from placer/hard-rock ores on a large scale (XXX TPH),"

A great deal of wisdom is apparent in his comments. 

Harold


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## Rhodium (Nov 30, 2009)

I guess a better way to put it would be job description.


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## captain1 (Dec 2, 2009)

Let me say all your comments were very help full. This weekend I did some more research and testing with my ore. I came across a comment made by someone in the forum. Can't remember who made it. But the comments on copper oxide got me thinking. What was said is that the base of my recipe had Lye(caustic soda) in it. When you have a base mixed just right with a acid will create metal oxide. or salt. I had that problem. I was leaching my metals and dropping as salt, instead of gold chloride. So I have now dropped that recipe and I am now using the recipe lasersteve has. Results were great just as I expected. However I am wondering now if I need to dilute my HCL/cl solution or put UREA in it before I precipitate my solution with ferrous sulfate? And how long is the standard to let your solution sit after your add the ferrous sulfate. And also would it be beneficial to make up some poor mans AR to clean up my first drop with. Or should I just use HCL/Cl to re-dissolve and drop with SMB or oxilic acid the second time. I'm sure it's covered somewhere in the forum. But the comments made on my questions are invaluable to me. I never would have gotten this far without the help of everyone so far.
Thanks everyone This forum rocks. Kirt


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 2, 2009)

captain1 said:


> Let me say all your comments were very help full. This weekend I did some more research and testing with my ore. I came across a comment made by someone in the forum. Can't remember who made it. But the comments on copper oxide got me thinking. What was said is that the base of my recipe had Lye(caustic soda) in it. When you have a base mixed just right with a acid will create metal oxide. or salt. I had that problem. I was leaching my metals and dropping as salt, instead of gold chloride. So I have now dropped that recipe and I am now using the recipe lasersteve has. Results were great just as I expected. However I am wondering now if I need to dilute my HCL/cl solution or put UREA in it before I precipitate my solution with ferrous sulfate? And how long is the standard to let your solution sit after your add the ferrous sulfate. And also would it be beneficial to make up some poor mans AR to clean up my first drop with. Or should I just use HCL/Cl to re-dissolve and drop with SMB or oxilic acid the second time. I'm sure it's covered somewhere in the forum. But the comments made on my questions are invaluable to me. I never would have gotten this far without the help of everyone so far.
> Thanks everyone This forum rocks. Kirt



Steve is definetly the one to listen too, he helps a lot.

Heat your HCL/CL soultion till the clorine disipates. Dilute 1 part HCL/cl 3 parts water and add SMB to drop your gold. You don't add Urea to HCL/cl, you use Urea on AR.

This post might help you get more PM's out of what you are looking for.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=6026

_*nickvc, 
I want to appologize for saying you were wrong in your earlier post on this thread 
. You were correct. I'm sorry for that.*_


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## nickvc (Dec 3, 2009)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> _*nickvc,
> I want to appologize for saying you were wrong in your earlier post on this thread
> . You were correct. I'm sorry for that.*_


Hey no problem this forum is about learning and the posts that followed i found useful, and hopefully we can point Captain in the right direction to be able to make his mine pay.


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## Harold_V (Dec 3, 2009)

That was a well handled exchange, for which you gents have my compliments. 

It pains me to see readers lower themselves to the level of junior high kids when dealing with questionable postings. We all learn from these things---some because they're right, and some because they're wrong. When corrections are offered in a mannerly fashion, such as we've witnessed here, everyone benefits. 

Harold


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## nickvc (Dec 3, 2009)

Harold_V said:


> That was a well handled exchange, for which you gents have my compliments.
> 
> It pains me to see readers lower themselves to the level of junior high kids when dealing with questionable postings. We all learn from these things---some because they're right, and some because they're wrong. When corrections are offered in a mannerly fashion, such as we've witnessed here, everyone benefits.
> 
> Harold


Thank you Harold. This forum is too valuable a resource to spoil for personal bickering or point scoring. Ive learnt more here in the short time as a member, than in the many years in the refinery that i ran,im not an expert and dont really have a good understanding of the chemistry involved so i listen to the many memers of this forum with respect and if i post a incorrect statement i expect to have it corrected ,and to learn from that correction,in this case i was right  but thanks to the challenge to my post i gained a better insight.


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## captain1 (Dec 3, 2009)

Can I drop my solution before it is diluted down,with ferrous sulfate? Or do I need to dilute always before I use a precipitant. And is smb the better precipitant? It would be nice if I could drop without diluting first. Then I would be able to continue use of some of my solution.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 3, 2009)

captain1 said:


> Can I drop my solution before it is diluted down,with ferrous sulfate? Or do I need to dilute always before I use a precipitant. And is smb the better precipitant? It would be nice if I could drop without diluting first. Then I would be able to continue use of some of my solution.



I think Steve and the rest of the guru's here will say to use SMB,since it is recomende here so much I will say it is better than ferrous sulfate. Not sure about the ferrous sulfate and it's abilities someone else will have to answer that. I think I have seen Steve or Harold post about using SMB (in a soild form no water added to disolve) without diluteing and it was stated that ice cubes were added to the percipitation process to keep the heat generated by the reaction down.

Steve gave me the best advice when he told me to add the clorox to the HCL soultion slowly because it is the bubbles that are produced that actually cause the reaction to disolve the gold. That was why I sent you to the link on the thread so you could look at what was happening. When he told me that I sent the material I was working with thru 3 process of HCL/CL and recovered gold each time. You might want to possibly try sodium hypoclorite mixed with water in a vessel to produce the clorine gass and then bubble it from that thru a tube into the material you are working with.

But what do I know I'm just the local idiot with a dunce hat setting in the corner like a bad boy!!!! :mrgreen:


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## Harold_V (Dec 4, 2009)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> I think I have seen Steve or Harold post about using SMB (in a soild form no water added to disolve) without diluteing and it was stated that ice cubes were added to the percipitation process to keep the heat generated by the reaction down.


Regards icing, unless you have a concentration of gold that exceeds maybe 2 ounces per liter, there is no need for ice. You can probably achieve success when it's as high as 3 ounces/liter. Precipitation is an exothermic reaction, but if you have adequate volume of solution, it will absorb any heat released. For the typical batch, where you may have a half ounce in a liter, you don't even notice a change in temperature. 

Ferrous sulfate is generally applied by pre-dissolving. That alone tends to increase solution volume adequately in all but the most heavily concentrated solutions. 

I believe Steve has commented several times on using SMB directly out of the container, no prior dissolution. 

Harold


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## lazersteve (Dec 4, 2009)

I use dry SMB exclusively when precipitating gold.

In this case the ice is not added to prevent the solution from overheating when SMB is added, but instead, it's for cooling the solution down to lower the solubility of the dissolved silver chloride. It can either be added into the solution directly or the beaker can be placed on ice to lower it's temperature. I usually add a handful of cubes into the solution. I learned this little trick from 4Metals  !

DO NOT place a hot beaker directly into an ice bath or it will shatter! Let the beaker cool to room tmeperature first.

Steve


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 4, 2009)

lazersteve said:


> I use dry SMB exclusively when precipitating gold.
> 
> In this case the ice is not added to prevent the solution from overheating when SMB is added, but instead, it's for cooling the solution down to lower the solubility of the dissolved silver chloride. It can either be added into the solution directly or the beaker can be placed on ice to lower it's temperature. I usually add a handful of cubes into the solution. I learned this little trick from 4Metals  !
> 
> ...



I guess you are useing regular tap water for you ice cubes so you are dooing a double whammy on the silver cloride by useing the clorinated ice cube and dropping the temp and this does a better job of dropping the silver cloride. 

Does this percipitate fine silver cloride? I ask because I have seen it mentioned that you add warm water and the silver cloride will clump together more isn't that correct?


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## Platinum (Apr 21, 2010)

8)


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## Anonymous (May 18, 2010)

hi i am new here and have been reading every ones comments , charles butler at butler labs has provided info on a clorox and vinegar leach that i have found works well on pgms and gold as well . it consists of equal parts clorox and 5% white vinegar @ 150 degrees , it typically does its job in a 2 hr time frame , precipitate with zinc and smelt , the orp runs at about 1145 at its peak and the ph runs around 1 or 2 , do not use an iron vessel as your irons will be in a foam . if this needs to be said , do not breathe the fumes these are household ingredients and should be enviromentaly friendly happy trails


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## shyknee (May 18, 2010)

they are not environmentally friendly just because they are household product

They can still kill you or do you harm 

take precaution

be safe


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