# gold powder



## SilverNitrate (Mar 6, 2008)

This is some gold precip that was dropped from AR using an ingot copper and 48" of 2mm copper wire. the moist weight was 363g before geing pulverized in an acid bath, the moist weight was then 342g, after totally dried its 318g 
[img:700:525]http://www.gholar.com/set/gold-ga.jpg[/img]
[img:700:525]http://www.gholar.com/set/gold-gb.jpg[/img]


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## Never_Evil (Mar 6, 2008)

that is a beautiful pile of powder


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## Platdigger (Mar 6, 2008)

Yea, that looks real nice Silver.


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## Lou (Mar 6, 2008)

That's going to melt quite nicely. The volume shrink is incredible.

In this case, I prefer blonde over brunette 8) I, like Harold and others, have found that the lighter the gold, the better it melts, and the nicer, cleaner, and pure ingots you get.



Lou


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## SilverNitrate (Mar 6, 2008)

All this gold is from used Karat Jewelry scrap appx 50% Au, dissolved in AR then dropped with copper. 
When this is melted using no flux I do get large crystalization with the 'sink' in the middle of an ingot. When I have this assayed its usually 99.5 to 99.8% (some times I think this is low) I at a later day will try some technique to purify to say 99.95 or better. 
this has a tap density of about 6 g/cc.


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## Lou (Mar 6, 2008)

You can do it today if you want 99,99 fine.

Dissolve all of that up in aqua regia again, deNOx it, then precipitate it with SO2. Follow Harold's rinsing procedure and I'm sure you will have improved the quality of your gold by 10 times!


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## draftinu (Mar 23, 2008)

That is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! :shock: She is a blonde alright.


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2008)

thats some nice powder, my powder is more yellow when i crushed it,,,,not sure how to go from there though,,looks like ill have to read up.,,cant afford no tools or chemicals,,,but i have over 15 pounds of of ore to crush,,,hope i get least 80% out of it,,,that would make my day,,id be willing to send some crushed to someone just to get me started,,,email me if interested ty


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## Rag and Bone (Apr 24, 2008)

Buddy, thats not ore. The photos are of pure gold powder before it is melted.


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2008)

oh i see, well when i crush mine, thats what i get but its mostly yellow then orange


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## Basanio M. Borromeo (May 16, 2008)

Here is a sample of what i melted from 189g gold brown powder. The resulting is 182g.


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## overneo (May 16, 2008)

Question?

You are tlaking about dropping with copper??? how does it work? I have understood that copper was a contaminant ...


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## Irons (May 16, 2008)

overneo said:


> Question?
> 
> You are tlaking about dropping with copper??? how does it work? I have understood that copper was a contaminant ...



Copper is lower in the electrochemical series than Gold, so the Gold precipitates out on the surface of the copper and copper goes into solution.
Copper is also very effective at precipitating Silver. One Summer, some friends and I precipitated about 500 Pounds of Silver that came from Silver solder scrap that was contaminated with Lead solder using Copper.


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## overneo (May 16, 2008)

Why here, everybody is talking about SMB to drop gold if they have just to add some copper into the solution?

This method works for the HCL + bleach bath?


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## Noxx (May 16, 2008)

Copper will also precipitate silver which is what you don't want. Also copper introduces some copper impurities in your gold, which is what you don't want. SMB shoudn't introduce any contaminents.


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## Andrew W (May 16, 2008)

SMB is also cheaper if you can get it without having to pay shipping..


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## Harold_V (May 16, 2008)

Andrew W said:


> SMB is also cheaper if you can get it without having to pay shipping..


That is a non-issue. The point here is that if you're* refining* gold, the use of copper is not acceptable. The entire concept of refining is to eliminate contaminants, not to introduce them. 

Copper is excellent for use in *recovering* values, but it is not the best choice for use when refining. For example, it is used in recovering silver from a nitrate solution, but it generally is a recovery process, in which not only silver, but traces of Pt group metals are also recovered. It is not selective----which is why it is NOT recommended for use when processing gold. 

Silver so recovered is generally intended for further processing. If one were to part their gold in a gold cell, it could safely be assumed that copper would then serve as the acceptable precipitant. 

Harold


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## yvonbug (May 17, 2008)

I think powder looking like that is orgazmic, and I'd just be sittin' there with a glass rod makin' little gold dots in it....-Y-


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## SilverNitrate (May 19, 2008)

During the time I posted that pic my main intention was seperating the silver from gold (99% of my business is silver) and since gold refineries don't pay for the silver or care what purity your gold is, it didn't matter If I get the Gold to 98% or 99.995%. They were going to process it anyway.
Most on this forum strips gold from electronics i.e. However my objective is acquiring silver. 100oz of karat jewelry has about 25oz silver which the refiner don't credit you for. From AR the silver falls as the chloride and seperated, then the gold is precipitated using copper, the copper is precipitated using iron. So figure 1lb of iron vs 1lb of SMB in price. 
But now I refine tiny amounts of gold as I'm looking to expand into products that contain gold. 
I haven't abandoned the use of copper from dropping gold, its just that its the most cost effective way of producing 99.5% or better gold at the cost of a few cents of iron.


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## Harold_V (May 19, 2008)

SilverNitrate said:


> 100oz of karat jewelry has about 25oz silver which the refiner don't credit you for.


That isn't true. 

If your metal includes white gold, it contains no silver at all. Typical 10K yellow contains 20.33% silver. Typical 14K yellow contains 12.5% silver. 

I realize this is a non-issue, but it's not a good idea to plant misinformation in the heads of readers. Nothing wrong with stating facts-----but that's now what you did. Readers would have unreasonable expectations assuming your comments were accepted as true. 

Frankly, I'd be surprised if, on the average, you recover any more than 15% silver when processing all yellow. Even that may be a stretch. Mixed batches, white & yellow, would obviously be much lower. 

Harold


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