# Peroxide and Hcl



## teabone (Jun 9, 2007)

If peroxide and Hcl will dissolve gold , then why go to another step with Clorox and Hcl ? What would be the advantage ?


----------



## lazersteve (Jun 9, 2007)

Teabone, 

By using the first method (peroxide acid) to dissolve the just base metals and not the gold, you will end up with a cleaner gold powder when it is dropped out of the second solvent ( HCl-Cl or AR ). As you have read time and time again on the forum, the purest gold is that which is first throughly cleaned of base metals, then dissolved and precipitated. A second cycle of cleaning and precipitation yields even higher quality gold. If you were to attack the gold and base metals outright using the acid peroxide bath the gold and copper laden liquid would drop gold when treated with SMB, but the gold would not be as pure as it would be if it was separated from the base metals first.

In practice you can remove the base metals with many techniques, including using the HCl-Cl to remove the base metal first. The idea behind using the peroxide acid to strip the base metals as a first step comes from the fact that the CuCl2 formed from the acid peroxide attacking copper is a really good solvent for Copper coupled with the fact that the same mix is only a fair solvent for gold ( 1/45 the dissolution rate of HCl-Cl and 1/450 the dissolution rate of AR). In short, the acid peroxide ratio is such that it is meant to catalyze the formation of CuCl2, not for the dissolving of the gold. By performing the acid peroxide reaction at room temperature, the likelyhood that the gold will be dissolved is reduced even further.

This duality of function of the acid peroxide method is leading me to believe that I should modify it yet again to be the Copper Chloride method. This way it will clearly be tuned to attacking the copper cladding and not the gold. The new and improved method will have the added benefit of having zero acidic fumes. I'm still researching the best solvent for copper when safety, speed, efficiency, and reusablity are factors.

Steve


----------



## teabone (Jun 9, 2007)

Thanks for that great answer ! Very good information , as usual , I have really learned a lot from you Steve as well as the rest of the refiners . Thanks to Noxx for getting this thing going and of course everybody else who has contributed their wealth of knowledge to this forum . Kudos to all !!!


----------



## Destroyer (Jun 10, 2007)

Let me make sure this is correct.
1.Harvest fingers(I use a wet Tile saw with a Diamond blade) No Bling, Bling
2.Soak in two buckets with a mix of 3:1 Peroxide/Clorox
3.Soak Gold Flakes in Clorox/HC1 
4.Drop with SMB
5. Test with Clorox/HC1 Stannous Cloride 
6. Wash mud test for purity
7. Smelt it
8. Hide it in Secret Bunker under house

I have seen many very good Posts on steps but not one with the big picture yet anyway, less the details of adding heat ect is that close?


----------



## lazersteve (Jun 10, 2007)

Destroyer said:


> Let me make sure this is correct.
> 1.Harvest fingers(I use a wet Tile saw with a Diamond blade) No Bling, Bling
> 2.Soak in two buckets with a mix of 3:1 Peroxide/Clorox
> 3.Soak Gold Flakes in Clorox/HC1
> ...



Here's how it should read:


 Harvest fingers(I use a wet Tile saw with a Diamond blade) No Bling, Bling 
 Soak a plastic strainer inside a bucket with a mix of 2:1 HCl/Peroxide 
 Pour off ONLY green liquid into a second bucket thru 5-6 filters
 Test reaction solution with Stannous Chloride
 Rinse foils in first bucket 3x-5x with HCl 
 Rinse 3x-5x with water until rinses are clear. Filter rinses into spare plastic jug.
 Add clean rinse filter foils to first bucket
 Transfer ALL CLEAN foils to small reaction vessel
 Wash Gold foils in HCl\Clorox 3x-6x until all foils are dissolved
 Filter Auric Chloride washes into large glass jar
 Rinse HCl\Clorox reaction vessel into large jar
 Drop with SMB 
 Let powder settle overnight
 Test liquid HCl\Clorox with Stannous Chloride 
 Siphon off liquid
 Wash mud test for purity 
 Smelt it 
 Hide it in Secret Bunker under house

Steve


----------

