# Help :(



## Oshawa2013 (Mar 5, 2013)

Well, like many others I have been learning and reading a lot of information, and this is all new to me... So far I started out with a little bit of Gold Plated Jewelry and some mixed pins and fingers from CPU components. I Mixed 2:1 HCL-Peroxide and soaked the material overnight in an attempt to remove base metals. I kinda thought it worked, and saw some gold foils floating for awhile, then they disappeared. Some people here have said that AP can dissolve gold if boiling, but the entire process was done at just above freezing in my garage. So, convinced that my bubblier and agitation had just broken down the gold into tiny particles I continued, and filtered out the AP. Then added hcl just to cover the material and slowly added Clorox until all visible traces of gold were gone and the solution was a greenish yellow. Then filtered again to remove plastic bits. (In Theory the gold should have been dissolved and went through the filter, leaving only plastic bits to be discarded.) The final greenish solution I have been having trouble with. I know I'm supposed to precipitate the gold now with SMB, but have no time to wait for the online delivery, and no wine/brewery/ or garden center here have SMB. I have acquired some potassium metabisulfite, and plain sulfate. I've read that the sodium in SMB is just a bystander in the reaction and shouldn't matter if its potassium, but when adding .5g then another .5 gram. Still no gold "powder" of "flakes". Also trying to make some stannous chloride, but have no pure tin, and no where seems to sell that here either, so im trying to use some chopped up solder in hcl, been sitting over 2 hours now and still clear, although Im not sure what color it should be. This is my first time, and not sure where I went wrong... Probably a lot of places... Budget is small, so beakers are kitchen cups, stir rod is plastic pen tube, ect....

Pictures attached. I hope someone can help me.


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## jeneje (Mar 5, 2013)

I can't help you with the gold, but making stannous, i use 95/5 tin solder. I cut up about 5 or 6 grams and add 25ml of 32% HCL and let set over night and then filter. the 5 is silver and drops out as a black powder. I got the solder at home depot.

Hope this helps some.
Ken

edited for spelling


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## kkmonte (Mar 5, 2013)

Hmm well i'm still a novice, but here is what i'm thinking, someone can correct me if i'm wrong. 

First of all, you only want to put your "gold flakes" into your glass container (hope your not planning on drinking out of those glasses again) to dissolve seperately from the other CPU components. Also you don't really want to mix different CPU components, as each contains different base metals. You want to keep your CPU's together in one batch, your gold fingers in another, etc. It seems by adding the HCL and bleach, you also dissolved base metals (probably copper which is why its green). So now you have a solution of dissolved everything.

How much HCL did you start off with and how much peroxide did you add? If you added too much (or too concentrated, what % H2O2 did you use?) peroxide, that can dissolve the gold.

The solution that you have, is it in a clean container with no CPU components, etc? or is everything still mixed together? If its in a separate container, in order to get your gold out, you probably want to put a nice clean piece of copper (bus bar or equivalent) in the solution. The solution will absorb the copper and "cement" out the gold that's in the solution as a fine black powder. You can then reprocess this later.

BTW, i order my stannous from ebay, there is a guy on there that makes fresh batches, and sends it out in a nice little brown glass bottle with a glass dropper all ready to go. It's not too expensive either (I think i paid like $10 including shipping).

Again, i only started this venture a few months ago so wait until you hear from Butcher or someone else who knows more then me! 

Ken


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## Oshawa2013 (Mar 5, 2013)

Wow, I didn't expect a reply so quickly. Thank you both so far for helping, I'll use better solder next time for stannous, the stuff I had has broke down into some gold silver and black sediments, guessing the black is silver, and silver color is tin not dissolved. I used half a cup of muratic acid (hcl) and a quarter cup of 3% peroxide. I did add copper in and black residue formed on it quickly so I took it out and set aside. Should I have left it in. Also it is just solution now. No bits or plastic.

Also I figured the components should all be separated to each type, but have a limited amount of materials. A few computers I took apart, a cell phone, sound board and GP bracelet and necklace. So I mixed half of what I had in one batch.


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## jeneje (Mar 5, 2013)

Oshawa2013 said:


> Wow, I didn't expect a reply so quickly. Thank you both so far for helping, I'll use better solder next time for stannous, the stuff I had has broke down into some gold silver and black sediments, guessing the black is silver, and silver color is tin not dissolved. I used half a cup of muratic acid (hcl) and a quarter cup of 3% peroxide. I Reyes putting copper in and black residue formed on it quickly so I took it out and set aside. Should I have left it in. Also it is just solution now. No bits or plastic.


Leave the copper in the solution and if you have an air bubble put it in with the copper an aerate the solution for 24 hours, Rinse the copper off let settle overnight and decant the solution leaving the black powder in the vessel. The black powder is your gold.
Ken


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## Oshawa2013 (Mar 5, 2013)

Ok, I'm very new to chemistry, and understand the concept of it all. But couldn't write an equation for anything happening. I've put the copper back into the solution and also the bubblier. Thank you again for your advice. The reason I have a limited amount of components and jewelry is because I wanted to make sure I can refine it before investing too much time in it.


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## butcher (Mar 6, 2013)

If you want to learn to recover and refine you have to invest an awful lot of time into it. :lol:


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## Oshawa2013 (Mar 7, 2013)

Ok so the copper bar worked and black sediment gathered on the bottom, I decanted solution and redissolved in Hal-cl, then added potassium metabisulfite and let settle. Then decanted again and rinsed powder in hot water, but when I attempted to melt it. Most of it incinerated and was left with I tiny black ball of metal that is not gold... Should I give up?


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## Oshawa2013 (Mar 7, 2013)

Well it definitely cost me more money, and a weeks time, and ended up with nothing. Not a good way to get out of financial jam. Now broke and have no gold or chemicals left. I may be back some day as a hobbyist, but impossible now to make money from it, thanks again everyone and be careful. The only thing I obtained was acid burns on my hands, eyes, face, and lungs. Plus a cool earth magnet from the computer...


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## jeneje (Mar 7, 2013)

Oshawa2013 said:


> Well it definitely cost me more money, and a weeks time, and ended up with nothing. Not a good way to get out of financial jam. Now broke and have no gold or chemicals left. I may be back some day as a hobbyist, but impossible now to make money from it, thanks again everyone and be careful. The only thing I obtained was acid burns on my hands, eyes, face, and lungs. Plus a cool earth magnet from the computer...


Oshawa, i hate it did not work out for you. The one thing you should keep in mind here, none of us got it right the first time we tried either. There is alot of work involved in the recovery and refinment of precious metals. The first and most important part is safety. Getting acid burns on your body tells me you did not read the safety section of the forum, Not good.

As for you giving up, you may want to just put things on hold and do more reading and practice what is in hoke's book and learn a few more details before walking away from what can be enjoyable to do.

If you were thinking you could make a living at refining, you were mislead. It takes alot of electronic scrap to get an once of gold or silver. It is hard work both physically and mentally. Good luck with your endeavors. 

Ken


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## butcher (Mar 8, 2013)

Oshawa2013,
You are right Escrap would be very hard to make money on, but there are things you can learn here that can make money.

Nobody ever won by quitting.

You do need a job, But you can learn this as a hobby, who knows someday it may pay those bills.


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## PowerSB (Mar 9, 2013)

Oshawa2013 said:


> Ok so the copper bar worked and black sediment gathered on the bottom, I decanted solution and redissolved in Hal-cl, then added potassium metabisulfite and let settle. Then decanted again and rinsed powder in hot water, but when I attempted to melt it. Most of it incinerated and was left with I tiny black ball of metal that is not gold... Should I give up?



Oshawa, I did the same procedure (precipitating with potassium metabisulfite) and got 6 grams of gold from material I was gathering for months. Everything was going as it should be (refining, washing and drying) until i tried to melt it. It became a black stuff, and powdered when I pressed it in my hand. I melted it in home made furnace with graphite crucible. Could it be that the potassium is giving us something else from the solution instead of gold. I guess i will skip the last step and just melt the foils next time (at least until I figure out what is happening). :?:


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## Marcel (Mar 9, 2013)

PowerSB said:


> guess i will skip the last step and just melt the foils next time (at least until I figure out what is happening). :?:



Don´t try it out, it has been done before, it wont be - it even cannot be - better than what you just did. Foils are never 100% clean pure gold.


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## mls26cwru (Mar 9, 2013)

PowerSB said:


> Oshawa2013 said:
> 
> 
> > Ok so the copper bar worked and black sediment gathered on the bottom, I decanted solution and redissolved in Hal-cl, then added potassium metabisulfite and let settle. Then decanted again and rinsed powder in hot water, but when I attempted to melt it. Most of it incinerated and was left with I tiny black ball of metal that is not gold... Should I give up?
> ...



what color was the powder that you tried to melt... good purity gold powder should appear like cinnamon. Also, in the case of Oshawa, a few computers, a couple sound boards and a cell phone are no where near enough material to produce an appreciable amount of gold. The amount of gold in that little bit of e-scrap would be nearly impossible to detect/recover. to give you an idea, a pound of just gold fingers will only yield about 2 grams of gold.


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## PowerSB (Mar 9, 2013)

Marcel said:


> PowerSB said:
> 
> 
> > guess i will skip the last step and just melt the foils next time (at least until I figure out what is happening). :?:
> ...



marcel where I live they will buy even 6 carat gold (no questions asked). As you can see i didn't intend doing that, I was aiming in the purest gold that I could get. But I came across this problem that I cant overcome (just when I thought I knew enough). I'm not saying I'll give up, just really surprised it didn't work.


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## PowerSB (Mar 9, 2013)

mls26cwru said:


> what color was the powder that you tried to melt... good purity gold powder should appear like cinnamon. Also, in the case of Oshawa, a few computers, a couple sound boards and a cell phone are no where near enough material to produce an appreciable amount of gold. The amount of gold in that little bit of e-scrap would be nearly impossible to detect/recover. to give you an idea, a pound of just gold fingers will only yield about 2 grams of gold.



mls26cwru, A bit darker than cinnamon color, and it didn't change color when I cleaned it with HCL , as I've seen it when others do (I've even repeated the whole process with the same gold). I will try to make copperas and precipitate with it. If it works I'll blame it on potassium if not, well....I will hit the streams searching for gold, and if that doesn't work I will start searching for a job :lol:
I really regret I didn't take pictures along the way. Maybe then someone could figure out where the problem was.


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