# Rookie's first run issues



## BaalAdvocate (May 26, 2016)

After doing some research on Youtube, I decided I finally had a use for the pile of old PCBs I had in the basement. During the course of my research of the vids, I noticed they only used the fingers for refining; I had full sticks that I wanted to process, and didn't think to depopulate the board since the etchant would dissolve the solder holding everything on the board.

Essentially, I had populated boards in the etchant solution, including the PCI slots (put in a trial MOBO) which are either (upon further research) ABS or PP plastic since they are susceptible to HCL; they dissolved into this gray-blue muck. Following advice on the PM refining Reddit, I took the muck and soaked it in an HCL bath, which helped but still contains the particulate. I set this batch aside in a second HCL bath until I can figure out how to separate it.

Since the first batch, I ran a second where I depopulated the plastics and capacitors, but left the ICCs on the sticks. As I expected, these more or less fell off into the solution with the gold foils and these tiny components which were not attacked by the HCL. During the decanting process, I noted that the same blue-gray muck was forming with the second plastic free batch. Is this the solder coming out of solution, and if so, how do I remove it from the gold foil (and fine gold particles which broke off the foils)?

I'm thinking either a soak in a greater quantity of HCL (maybe the HCL becomes saturated and loses capacity) then run it through consecutive baths in distilled water to remove the chlorine then soak in Nitric, or remove the material, dry it and incinerate. A third option that I had contemplated would be using different density media (layers of oil, water, and corn syrup or some such) then let it separate by gravity.

Any advice would be most appreciated; I don't want to lose gold yield through trial and error.


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## kernels (May 27, 2016)

I'm a complete beginner, only having done 1 successful gold drop, but something that I read on the forum somewhere stuck with me, it went something like: Get to the point where you can drop 2 to 3 grams of gold from 600 grams of clean ram fingers reliably before chasing the higher-hanging fruit.

Tin is what is most likely causing you problems in your chemistry, have you read the relevant parts of the hoke book ?


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## jason_recliner (May 27, 2016)

Hi Advocate, welcome to the forum.
(Note that I do not call you by your full name - at which I take slight umbrage.)

To your problem: I do think it is not just tin also the garbage you have collected. As you have discovered, HCl can turn junk to gunk. Particularly soft plastics, whereas hard plastics might be a little more resilient. Don't try to filter the muck. For your muck will become stuck. The best you can do is wash it with more HCl and 'decant' to clean it. That is, allow it to settle and gently pour the saturated dirty acid away from the valuable solids.

I've been there, done that, made the same mistakes.

Based on your description, where you have not mentioned any oxidiser (Peroxide, nitric, bleach, etc), I expect you have probably not yet dissolved any gold. And that would make it easier for you. Though at some point you will need stannous chloride SnCl2 testing solution, to be sure. Search amongst the gazillion posts about stannous chloride to avoid the repetition here.

Also. Swapping HCl/HNO3 acids cannot be done by merely rinsing in water. For some acid will remain and dissolve your gold. You need incineration. This is a fundamental rule. Get some reading under your belt and you will learn why.


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## BaalAdvocate (May 27, 2016)

Sorry, the name is a hold over from highschool; just easier to remember one username. Thanks for the advice! I downloaded the e-book and have started reading it, but I'm slow.

With the reading I've done in the forum (particularly Harold's post on incineration), I think I should collect all the muck I have and dry it (was thinking of boiling it in an old crockpot to drive off the moisture), then just torch it in a stainless pan. From my understanding, this would destroy the plastics and drive off the acids, but how does one deal with the resultant ash and probable base metal contaminants? Soak in nitric?


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## Phishin_ca (May 27, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> Sorry, the name is a hold over from highschool; just easier to remember one username. Thanks for the advice! I downloaded the e-book and have started reading it, but I'm slow.
> 
> With the reading I've done in the forum (particularly Harold's post on incineration), I think I should collect all the muck I have and dry it (was thinking of boiling it in an old crockpot to drive off the moisture), then just torch it in a stainless pan. From my understanding, this would destroy the plastics and drive off the acids, but how does one deal with the resultant ash and probable base metal contaminants? Soak in nitric?



The incineration that Jason was referencing was a method of completely eliminating one acid from the material before adding another. Without that process, you will be putting gold in solution and filtering it as waste. It would be noticed of course with proper testing of your solutions, but if it can be avoided it will improve the immediate yield from your material. 

Pictures are extremely helpful here as it allows the other members to see what is going on. Please try to post some! 

Hoke's books are surprisingly easy reading for a beginner, and do cover almost every aspect of what you are attempting to do. If you have enough material to justify your work, the small investment in reading them will pay off(if not in yield, definitely in safety!)

Personally, I think you may have created a mess that will not be easily recovered from and that slowing down (stopping for now) is going to be your best bet. Sorry for sounding negative, but please don't just torch your material in the back yard in hopes of cleaning up and gaining a few dollars. 

Shawn


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## BaalAdvocate (May 27, 2016)

Yeah, I made a mess, lol. I have a crockpot full of everything that you'd find on a board; little capacitors, pins, rusted pins, silicon dust, partially dissolved PCI slots (ABS or PP plastic). I'm dealing with (comparatively) small amounts of material, since this is more of a pet project to occupy myself with than a money making venture (for now anyway). I will try to get some pictures up, assuming I can find a decent camera.

I had around a pound of these old RAM chips and 1 motherboard I broke in half that I put in a solution of CuCl with a bubbler. After a week, I checked the material in my tub, and found that the PCI slots had bloated and started to slough off into the solution which is where most of the mess came from. I have tried filtering this crap out, but as Jason pointed out, it's just clogging my filters. At the time i had been simply squeezing the filter papers into a rough poultice shaped blob and putting them in a jar for later processing. This later processing took the form of a bucket filled with a large excess of clean HCL, which did break up the tacky mess to some degree but didn't eliminate it. When I tried to filter the contents of this first clean HCL bath, the filters again were clogged, so I put it back in the bucket to sit. 

While the first batch was sitting in the 'digester', my second batch which was again RAM chips with the ICs still on the board but without any plastic were completing their etch cycle. As I was spraying the gold foils off the fingers, I noticed that the water created a white cloudiness in the drain, which I am assuming is either dissolved plastics or as has been suggested, tin. At this point I came to the conclusion that I was using too many containers. I added the contents of the digester to the crockpot that I had washed the second batch into; both batches are now in the same crockpot with most of the same impurities (minus the ICs because they were easy enough to remove).

Where I am sitting at currently, is that all my my active source material (minus some HCL that I have removed from the system to free up crockpot space and neutralized with aluminum and sodium bicarb; abortive attempt to recover copper. It's not in a jug awaiting hazardous waste day) is currently in the crockpot. This is where I'm stuck. 

I'm trying to figure out a way to remove the colloidal plastic and metals. I was thinking incineration because it would destroy the plastics, and drive off the chlorine and moisture, then use a magnet to remove the bigger bits of ferrous metals. The remainder I could then soak in nitric acid, dissolve everything but the gold, filter, then AR. 

Some questions I would have, aside from how you guys would address the problem, are:

1. How do I remove the tin (haven't had much chance to read Hoke's book yet)?
2. How do I remove the plastic? As it's colloidal, it settles with the gold particles (the foils break apart under the spray bottle). I was considering a panning or sluicing attempt, but I have no experience with that, nor the equipment on hand. Am I just going to have to soak the muck in a large amount of HCL or nitric to dissolve it away, or can I burn it off?


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## butcher (May 28, 2016)

I wish to learn how metals react chemically.
I wish to learn the chemistry of working with metals safely.

Where do I begin?

How about starting with study, the forum has the information, safety is a good place to begin.
Now that I have begun my study into safety, I will want to understand the basic principles.

Hokes Book will help me understand the principles. Here is also a great place to begin to learn the reactions of metals in chemistry, the book explains the chemistry in layman's terms, along with a guide of simple experiments to help you get acquainted with the reactions which give you a basic understanding. This book explains the basic principles and will be very helpful in beginning a study into this field of science.

Or

I can just watch a video, read a page or two and dump a bunch of dangerous acids into a pot of circuit boards full of many different kinds of metals many of which can be dangerous. that didn't work as planned may i can ask a few questions and clean up this mess? wondering what would happen if I just burnt everything and started over after asking the forum a couple of questions to answer what I think may happen), still without any idea of how I should deal with this toxic mess I have, and no idea of the dangers involved.


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## BaalAdvocate (May 28, 2016)

At this point I feel the need to point out that I'm not just slopping chemicals around in buckets in my back yard with no PPE or thought into safety or process. I'm following the lab protocols that I learned in school, using the PPE I have, outdoors. I am putting my waste into marked and labelled source jugs (contrary to my typo in my earlier post). I have the MSDS for the chemicals I'm working with printed off and stored in a binder. I am researching the steps that I'm attempting to take, and finding that there is a variable present that I had not noticed or failed to account for. Which at this particular step of the process, is an abundance of colloidal lead chloride. My research is not perfect, and I readily acknowledge that fact, which is why I ask. I am trying to follow what advice I've gotten, which is why I've started reading Hoke, though she appears to be using a different method than I was when I set out (for instance, I do not have electrolysis equipment, am not intending to recover silver or platinum group metals, etc). 

I was hoping to, through Q&A, discover a method of separating gold particles out of whatever colloidal solution has formed (probably lead chloride from what my googling has shown). I don't mean to sound snarky or petulant; there is alot of information out there and it's somewhat difficult to parse out which forum posts are pertinent to what I am encountering. As this is a first production run, I am ironing out the kinks in my process. For example, I will probably soak the boards in HCL prior to CuCl etching to remove the solder since it's proving to be a hassle to do so post-facto. 

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my posts, I appreciate it.


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## jason_recliner (May 28, 2016)

PbCl2 is almost insoluble in cold water, but readily dissolves in hot water. When it crystallises, it tends to form needle-like crystals.

I very much doubt lead chloride will be a colloid. In fact I am not really sure you understand what a colloid is. Colloids are nano-sized particles that are too small to see (without some expensive gear). They will not "settle" and is one reason you need to keep tin out of your gold.

You may have a suspension of plastic parts. Without some photos it's a bit hard to guess what you're looking at.


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## Anonymous (May 29, 2016)

BA, do us all a favour and throw some pictures up please, then we can be of more help. 

Jon


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## BaalAdvocate (May 29, 2016)

I apologize for a lack of pictures; took me a while to find the camera, and the weather has been less than cooperative, but I did get some today. I dunked a beaker into my crockpot to pull some of the crap up then let it separate.


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## jason_recliner (May 30, 2016)

Can you confirm that the only chemical used on this so far is HCl?
You have proposed adding nitric, several times, but have not yet said you've used any.


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## BaalAdvocate (May 30, 2016)

Yep, the only acid so far I've used is HCL.


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## kernels (May 30, 2016)

It just occurred to me that if you put whole boards into HCl, then there was probably a lot of aluminium from electrolytic capacitors, that gives a grey-ish result with HCl and reacts very happily.


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## jason_recliner (May 30, 2016)

Since it has only seen hydrochloric, if this were mine I would investigate further by taking a very small sample (of either known weight or volume) and adding some more HCl to it. I would see whether it then dissolves completely, and if it does so, how much HCl is required. Then I would calculate how much acid is required to dissolve the lot.

For with so much junk in it, you may find yourself at a point where the cost of HCl exceeds the cost of recoverable values.


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## BaalAdvocate (May 30, 2016)

As a hunch, I saturated the crockpot with tap water and heated it; the mix took on a milky white consistency. I started carefully removing the water from the top (which ranged from a light grey to an almost milky color) and poured it into jugs. I think I'm going to take your advice Jason and collect a sample or two. See what happens with additional HCL, and then dry out the other and heat (see if it's plastic, aluminum, or PbCl).

Thanks for the help guys, feels nice to be making some progress again.


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## jason_recliner (May 31, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> See what happens with additional HCL, and then dry out the other and heat (see if it's plastic, aluminum, or PbCl).


Don't put the cart before the horse. Do your test on the sediment first. Hunches are what got you into this mess.


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## BaalAdvocate (May 31, 2016)

Alright, I took 800 ml of my mystery solution and boiled off the moisture. This left some dark deposits, which when I scraped them up with a spatula, turned into a dark brown powder. There didn't appear to be any crystal growth, though whether they would grow under heat I don't know (if they did, they'd be small crystals). So, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions as to what this is.


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## FrugalRefiner (May 31, 2016)

Take a look at this thread. I hope it will help. Simple Answers

Dave


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## BaalAdvocate (May 31, 2016)

Excellent post! I try to be as safe as I can with the PPE I have, but so far I've only had to deal with Cl fumes. Nitric is still a ways off for me. If PAPR or SCBA weren't so expensive, I'd love to have them, but for the moment I've got an M17 mask with new filters (and hood), neoprene gloves, leather apron, and long sleeves. Not ideal I know, but it's what I've got. 

I do my work outside since I don't own real estate (being a broke recent graduate of 27) of my own and have no fume hood. Aside from sudden changes in wind direction (as mentioned in one of the links) are there any major downsides to working open air? 

I did see mention in a couple of the posts you linked of some forum handbooks? I didn't see links to them, unlike the Hoke book. Was wondering if they're still a thing.

As for my experiment today; didn't do much aside from heating a sample to try and determine what it is. I spoke to my friend's mom (chemist at 3M for something like 15 years) to see if she'd help me figure this out. Hopefully I can get some help.


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## nickvc (Jun 1, 2016)

Please don't take this the wrong way but you have got help you just do not see it yet
I think we all know your frustration most of us have been there at some point and will be again.
We could simply tell do this and that and hey presto it's done but you won't learn anything, if you intend to pursue this then do it properly and read and learn, the next time you do something wrong the fix you get for this might not work. You seem to understand the dangers or some of them but this is not for the faint hearted, the chemicals we use and the solutions we produce are toxic some very toxic, the materials we try to refine can and frequently do have toxic elements than can be released by either chemical processing, grinding or incinerating.
For now so long as you have thrown nothing away your gold is safe, carefully store it all somewhere safe and get reading, there is no shortcut you need to understand what's happening, what could happen and the next step in each process, your not the first member to arrive here with this situation those who take our advice are now competent refiners, those that don't normally give up.
You can do this, you can learn to recover and refine, you just need to bite the bullet and study.
Good luck.


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## FrugalRefiner (Jun 1, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> Excellent post! I try to be as safe as I can with the PPE I have, but so far I've only had to deal with Cl fumes. Nitric is still a ways off for me. If PAPR or SCBA weren't so expensive, I'd love to have them, but for the moment I've got an M17 mask with new filters (and hood), neoprene gloves, leather apron, and long sleeves. Not ideal I know, but it's what I've got.


You've probably produced more than just chlorine fumes. That is the point of the thread I linked to. Since you don't yet fully understand what you're doing, you have no idea what kind of fumes you're producing.



> I do my work outside since I don't own real estate (being a broke recent graduate of 27) of my own and have no fume hood. Aside from sudden changes in wind direction (as mentioned in one of the links) are there any major downsides to working open air?


Yes, you poison everyone and everything downwind from you. It's one thing to do some test tube sized reaction in open air. It's a different matter when you start processing quantities of material.



> I did see mention in a couple of the posts you linked of some forum handbooks? I didn't see links to them, unlike the Hoke book. Was wondering if they're still a thing.


Look for any post by Palladium. He put them together and he has links in his signature line. Be aware that, somewhat like Hoke's book, some of the information is a little dated. They're collections of posts made in the early days of the forum, and in some cases, better methods have emerged.



> As for my experiment today; didn't do much aside from heating a sample to try and determine what it is. I spoke to my friend's mom (chemist at 3M for something like 15 years) to see if she'd help me figure this out. Hopefully I can get some help.


As long as you're "experimenting" without understanding, you're endangering yourself and those around you.

Dave


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## jason_recliner (Jun 1, 2016)

Advocate, I'm baffled.

You asked what you could do about your unexpected solids and I gave you a simple test that you could run on a very small sample, a test which would help you determine what you have and how you might be able to recover it. Maybe it was naïve of me to hand you a test before you are ready. I think a small test is rarely a bad idea.

But then you did something totally different. That's entirely your prerogative. But also your responsibility, should you hurt yourself or your neighbours. 
Where on earth did you get the idea to boil your solution dry? I can't conceive what you expected to result, but I doubt you found instructions on this forum to splatter your values all over the place.

Yet another hunch of randomness? I'm losing count of them. Stop it. Stop it now.
You must understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and your expected outcome.

Please do heed the other refiners' advice; for they are far more experienced than I am, and they too are trying to help you for the long term. Truly.


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## BaalAdvocate (Jun 1, 2016)

I found this post (http://tinyurl.com/jl6tgy7) is fairly close to my own situation. 

Jason: The boiled waste solution (I know it doesn't contain any value; it was all scooped from the top of the settled pot, and I had not used any strong oxidizers or nitric) was to try and force the solution to crystalize; if it was a large amount of lead chloride it should have formed white crystals. Instead it formed a brownish dust, and I admit I didn't catch it when it stopped boiling immediately but to me this would indicate that the suspended particles are something that can burn at relatively low temps: plastic. The volumes I mentioned are simply a result of massive dilution, so I had to have a large volume just to get enough to test.

I'm not sure if PbCl would be carried into steam or not from boiling, but the hotplate I use is rather anemic, temp maxes out around 250 degrees. As this MSDS (http://tinyurl.com/j4mrgrg) states, PbCl is not flammable, but at high enough temperatures (ie, fire) produces Lead oxides and hydrogen chloride gas. 

To further determine if it's PbCl I did set aside a much smaller volume with a higher concentration of the muck to dry, but because it has rained almost continuously the last week it has yet to evaporate. If this volume fails to crystallize (and since it's evaporating at a slower pace the crystals should be larger), it would also show that the crap is plastic.

My last beaker is the muck with additional HCL to soak and see what happens there.

As always, thank you guys for the posts!


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## nickvc (Jun 1, 2016)

You need to stop cherry picking the responses you are getting and realise you have one big mess that few can advise how to put right unless they have been there.
Put the damn stuff away and start reading.
I will not post on this again until I see some attempt to learn.


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## upcyclist (Jun 2, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> The boiled waste solution (I know it doesn't contain any value; it was all scooped from the top of the settled pot, and I had not used any strong oxidizers or nitric) was to try and force the solution to crystalize;


The underlined statement may not be true. I was just soaking some gold filled wire in nitric last week--as the nitric dissolved the basemetal core of the bits of wire, gas bubbles would form. Many of these pieces floated to the top and did not sink to the bottom of their own volition. 

In other words, check your assumptions. It _is _possible for gold, when attached to or carried by other things, to float. A one-pound ingot of gold floats when it's in a boat, right?


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## kernels (Jun 3, 2016)

Yup, I'm processing some kovar pins now, I guess it's the hydrogen released by the reaction of the HCl with the base metal, but I have quite a lot of floating tiny bits of gold at the moment. Has anyone/everyone noticed how they seem to clump in crystal like patterns when they float ? Very cool


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## patnor1011 (Jun 3, 2016)

OP need to realize that he is wasting his and our time. Sometime it is better to abandon "pet project" mainly if it lead you to nowhere and to financial loss. It does not look like pet project, it look more like gold fever. Whatever you did spent on chemicals, energy and time up to this moment will surpass any potential yield many times over. Like hundred times over. Everything you did so far cant be even taken as a learning as you simply do not learn, you jump from one thing to another without any logical sequence. I get it - you are trying things but with your limited knowledge on subject you are trying wrong things and in wrong order which make problem even more complicated. 
Amount of material you are trying to "process" - pound of ram sticks and couple of motherboards is way too small and way too complicated for beginner to even try. 

One does not do research on youtube. Youtube is for entertainment not for learning. Do yourself a favor and find another hobby.


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## BaalAdvocate (Jun 5, 2016)

:roll:

Well, despite some rather discouraging posts here, believe it or not I did research. For a forum dedicated to helping people try this, it's been very, negative. I'll just lurk around and use posts as a reference, but now I know better than to ask for help.

I don't just 'jump from one thing to another'. I was trying to solve for an unknown but conducting :gasp: experiments. Dehydration should have produced crystals if it was a salt; it didn't. Heating a sample of the stuff showed that the contents are heat sensitive; salts are not. Leaving the stuff stand for a few days, it separated; aqueous from non-aqueous. What does this show? That the crap left in the pot is plastic. How do you deal with polymers? You break them into smaller hydrocarbon chains. How? Heat it. Not that anyone here actually offered any real advice, just alot of 'read Hoke'; who aside from two brief paragraphs regarding plastic's merits in use as containers, did not encounter polymers in her work. 

I didn't set out with this trying to make money, I wanted to learn. To learn, I asked you lot questions, which were more or less shouted down. I mean, unless you guys simply want to drive off potential competitors, you might want to, I dunno, be friendlier.

Edit 2: You might want to consult this: http://periodic-table-of-elements.org/SOLUBILITY I found it helpful...


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## Geo (Jun 5, 2016)

I found that evaporation tends to create crystals when it's not forced. Stuff like copper(II) chloride makes beautiful green crystals when allowed to sit undisturbed and evaporate at ambient temps. On the other hand, if you force dry copper(II) chloride on heat, it will create a black, syrupy goop and then a black/green crust. So temperature is a factor in all aspects of chemistry. Every solid that you see around you will become a liquid and then a gas if you increase the temperature enough. So the state of any given material is subjective. All matter acts differently at different temps. 

Salts and metals can be reactive to acids or caustics. what may not react to acid may react to a base. Aluminum is fairly inert in nitric acid but reacts violently to sodium hydroxide. 

Try not to take offense to members that post replies that seem mean spirited. They are only concerned for your safety. You can imagine the people that comes here with all sorts of dangerous things they are trying to do without the slightest bit of knowledge about what they are doing. They are immediately advised to stop and study just as you were. No one here is picking on you personally because no one here knows you personally.


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## g_axelsson (Jun 5, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> Well, despite some rather discouraging posts here, believe it or not I did research. For a forum dedicated to helping people try this, it's been very, negative. I'll just lurk around and use posts as a reference, but now I know better than to ask for help.


We get people like you all the time, the gold fever hits and they think they are doing experiments to learn but for us with some experience we see that it is both random and dangerous. A little over a month ago Toddntucson7 joined the forum. He never stopped to listen on the advice we gave him and made all kind of wild experiments spread over several threads. This is one.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=23825
Your attitude and wild experimentation reminds me a lot of Todd. The situation got worse and we finally banned him.

Three weeks later he returned under a new name with a sad story of how he got poisoned to the point of needing dialysis.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=23926

The sad thing is he's not the first member that's gotten poisoned while refining and I'm afraid that he's not the last one.




> I don't just 'jump from one thing to another'. I was trying to solve for an unknown but conducting :gasp: experiments. Dehydration should have produced crystals if it was a salt; it didn't. Heating a sample of the stuff showed that the contents are heat sensitive; salts are not. Leaving the stuff stand for a few days, it separated; aqueous from non-aqueous. What does this show? That the crap left in the pot is plastic. How do you deal with polymers? You break them into smaller hydrocarbon chains. How? Heat it. Not that anyone here actually offered any real advice, just alot of 'read Hoke'; who aside from two brief paragraphs regarding plastic's merits in use as containers, did not encounter polymers in her work.
> 
> I didn't set out with this trying to make money, I wanted to learn. To learn, I asked you lot questions, which were more or less shouted down. I mean, unless you guys simply want to drive off potential competitors, you might want to, I dunno, be friendlier.


Maybe Hoke didn't encounter plastics in her time, but she saw a lot of wood, leather, fabric and wax, and it is dealt with the same way as plastics. Incineration. She writes about it and there are tons of information about it on the forum.

But why would I want to spend time writing it all over again when I can point you in the right direction and let you read it yourself?
After a while, when I see that a new member isn't listening to advice or just what he want's to hear, then I don't want to waste any time even giving pointers. I rather work with my own scrap and refine some gold on my spare time.

And for your information, a lot of salts are heat sensitive and most solids are crystal in nature even if you can't see it with your eyes.

Göran


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## patnor1011 (Jun 5, 2016)

People need to realize that precious metals recovery and refining is here for thousands of years already. Most of the shortcuts if not all of them were already found. 
You are hardly going to find one and "garbage in = garbage out" applies to most of your attempts. 
Different acids are used to deal with plastics but you are not qualified nor equipped to even think about this kind of refining - no offense intended. 99% of members here are not equipped for that one, including me.

You either remove plastic from your feed stock or incinerate it thoroughly. If you are not set up for incineration of plastic you do have only one option - elbow grease.


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## Shark (Jun 5, 2016)

> People need to realize that precious metals recovery and refining is here for thousands of years already. Most of the shortcuts if not all of them were already found.



I really like that qoute. 

If you need to experiment to learn, follow the experiments in Hoke's book. Believe me, they can and will teach you much. There is so much to learning just the things that have already been time proven that I am short on time for experimenting out in the fringe areas. I like to leave that to those who are more experienced and I hope they can pass it on to us newer folks later. When I run a process I am after something specific, usually gold...sometimes silver. I prefer to follow a known standard because it produces quicker results. At my age, with my health, I don't have much confidence in the "hit or miss" methods.


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## lakeraider (Aug 25, 2016)

BaalAdvocate said:


> :roll:
> 
> 
> Edit 2: You might want to consult this: http://periodic-table-of-elements.org/SOLUBILITY I found it helpful...



Nice table of info, thanks for the link. Much appreciated.


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