# Newbie needs some advise



## michelemalatesta (Jan 9, 2010)

Hi, I spent a couple of months researching the chemical process of recovering gold and platinum. I downloaded printed and put the book Refinin precious metals wastes by cm hoke into a binder. I read it a couple of times still not completely understanding but that comes with actually do the process. I ordered the kit from I shore with the sub zero. 

Here is what happened. I put the subzero and muriatic acid in a crock pot and added my metals. The content of the metals were gold pins from computers some 14 k jewlery and some cell phone parts that tested up for gold. I performed this process 3 times....the first time I did not filter....I can understand that...the second time I didn't dump off all of the acid before the rinse and I redisolved the gold...this time this is what i have...

I believe I followed all of the directions correctly, I put the mud from the firsts and second batch in the solution, and also computer parts and jewlery that tested up for gold most only testing 10 k . I heated up the solution in a crock pot and let it go for a couple hours. Then I added the urea, it did not fiz but i added another pinch just to be sure. I filtered the liquid to make sure no other undisolved metals were in the solution. Then I added the solution to the storm precipitant. I let it set for about 20 minutes. I poured off the acid and in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket was about an inch of brown metalic mud. I then added the water to rinse. I let it set for about 20 minutes to settle to the bottom and proceeded to pour the liquid off expecting to see the mud again. There was nothing there. The 5 gallon bucket after adding the water still has a very strong odor. Does anyone know what I could have done wrong and how do I get the gold out of the 5 gallons of water?


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## Trustworthysole3 (Jan 9, 2010)

I feel your pain shore left me out to dry many times before I stopped using them. Number one job is to use your gold test solution shore sent you and find your gold. The stuff shore uses is very temp sensitive like above or no go. Find your gold and tell me what the conditions are like what is in etc.


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## chemist (Jan 9, 2010)

It is possible that the gold has redissolved in the acid because the nitric was not completely neutralized by the urea.
Like trustworthysole suggested, you need to use your stannous chloride solution (a.k.a. precious metals detection liquid) to figure out if the gold is still in solution. I wouldn't dispose of anything until you figure out what is going on.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 9, 2010)

Ok, this is what I have, the wash water, I wasn't sure how to test that but this is what I did. After letting it set for a couple hours, Its still cloudy but I poured it off and at the bottom there is some white mud. I tested that with the amonia and it turns gray, then I tested the water with the gold detecting vial and it shows black on the paper towel. so I think my gold is in the wash water. I also tested the acid in the crock and that also turns dark brown telling me there is also gold there but i think most of the gold is in the wash water.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 10, 2010)

Ive been reading the other posts and If I understand it right the white substance at the bottoom of my rinse water is copper chlorine. As soon as i move the bucket to pour off the water it redisolves in the water. I'm not sure what to do with this water or how to get the gold out of it. 

Thank you for any advise This site is great!!! I just signed up for it yesterday and I have found alot of useful information. 

Michele


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## chemist (Jan 10, 2010)

Are you now sure that you have neutralized all of the nitric? Try taking a small amount of the wash solution (a few millilitres) and adding smb to it. If you get the gold to precipitate, then great. If not, the problem may be that you have not fully neutralized the nitric. I would try adding a small amount of urea to your small amount of wash solution. If the urea creates bubbles, then you still have nitric in solution. Watch out for foaming when you add the urea.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 10, 2010)

First let me thank your for your help it is greatly appreciated. Now this is what I did, first I checked the acid that I first put precipitant in and it showed there is still gold in there, then I checked the rinse bucket and that also showed gold. Both containers smell very strong, i'm not sure if that has any bearing on this but, I added more urea to both containers. then I added precipitant to that.. Im not sure how long to let it set before pouring off, I don't think there was any mention of that in anything that I have read. The original container is was a brown color and my rinse bucket is a blueish white color. Am I doing everything right so far?


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 10, 2010)

Oh, by the way, I did the test on a small amount first. I added a lil bid of the precipitant and nothing happened, then i added some urea, no foaming but I did see some bubbles. A very small amout. I added precipitant again and nothing.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 10, 2010)

ok, I added more urea and then put precipitant into the acid solution. I waited a couple hours and did a test on the liquid to see if the gold was thrown down and its not..The acid test turned dark black. So I added more urea again..How much urea should I be using and should it still have a strong smell?


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## Trustworthysole3 (Jan 11, 2010)

Put in the urea until it does not bubble at all and watch your Temperature if below 70 deg F then it can take days for the stuff to drop. Do not keep adding the smb until the bubbling has completely stopped. When the urea has stopped bubbling and a few granules remain on the bottom then try the smb. You should see a color change. Have you watched Lazersteves videos yet? He has been a god send for me in the refining field. As previously stated do not throw away anything until you have your gold.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 11, 2010)

I have don'e a couple of searches for his video but I havent come across any link. Do you have the linK? I also wanted to purchase his cat video. 

Thank you for your input. I'm going to do the precipitate next. and i'll poke around a lil bit more for the videos. 

Michele


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## dick b (Jan 11, 2010)

Here is Steves website:
http://www.goldrecovery.us/
You need to agree to the terms and use the password to get in 
Username: gold
Password: goldm1ner*

dickb


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 12, 2010)

Ok, I have added the smb and the gold still has not dropped. I read through older posts and If i'm understanding corectly i have chloride. Thats why nothing is dissolving. I know that I put several different metals in my solution without running it through the nitric acid or the acid peroxide first. Lesson learned. Now what do I do?


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## butcher (Jan 13, 2010)

here's how I would mess with this, a copper buss bar boil this in solution to syrup but not to crystal salts, bush off busbar into solution.
(Save the bar for later use some gold will plate to it)
add HCl to this syrup to wet, boil down again to syrup, (this will eliminate the nitric).
add at least 3 volumes of water, see if you have a white precipitant of silver, adding a small amount of HCL till no more silver precipitates, let this settle overnight, if you see silver chloride white powder, now you will have copper and silver and gold in powders if they were present, carefully decant (remove liquid), test this liquid with stannous chloride spot test to determine if any gold still in solution,
these copper gold silver powders I would incenerate to drive off any chlorides, and to oxidize any base metals present, heat them slowly till they drive off all liquid raising heat slowly untill they glow red (in air or oxygen) but do not melt them back to metal, let cool, and if I were you I would put then in a jar and store them for a couple of rainy days and read up on the forum of the best way to process these, I would forget the shore product, use the real acids (or make your own shore products from fertilizers)
forget about Urea, use evaporation method instead, rid base metals before going for the gold, and if you do study and don't understand something there are dozens of people here willing to help,
I would start my study by looking at eliminating base metals with nitric and maybe how to make nitric acid, (then use these powder to practice with), then maybe the Aqua regia process, then how to eliminate nitric, then recovering silver from nitric, then how to make stannous chloride and use it to test with, then how to precipitate the gold, and Harolds wash proceedure and to tell if these powders need re-refined, then how to melt to beutiful gold buttons, look for Hokes book, Harolds posts are also a great source of info, I hope you dont live in the desert, here in Oregun we have plenty of rainy days, and can have time to read, and I dont mind getting wet.
keep us posted of ypur progress.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 13, 2010)

Thank you very much for your reply help. I spent much of the day looking up this process. I wasn't able to find many posts on copper bus bar but from what I did find, let me just make sure im understanding correctly if you don't mind. We are adding the copper to eliminate the other metals but, some gold may be removed as well? 

I have two things going on here. I have my rinse water, which is a blue color with white at the bottom. When I tested the white sediment it tests for gold. So i should decant most of the liquid and then start the process that you have explained?

Then I have the original aqua regia solotion that is also testing for gold. 

I think I understand what I have done wrong in the first place. First I added to many metals. I now know that I should have cleaned everything up first with the lye then with the nitric acid. That all makes since to me. Then when I put the metals in the aqua regia in a crock, I covered the crock 3/4 with a lid. Not allowing the other metals to evaporate? 

Is there any other searches you can recommend? I searched copper bus bar boil, copper bus bar,

And I have one more question, I went onto steves site to order his videos, I am interested in the catalytic converter refining and also a full video of refining computer scrap. It does not give me an option to pay for the videos I can watch what he has there.


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 13, 2010)

I haven't taken the time to wade!! through this thread, so my comments may be meaningless.

michelemalatesta,



> We are adding the copper to eliminate the other metals but, some gold may be removed as well?


Take a look at this simplified electromotive series. The only metals precipitated by copper are those below copper in the series, including gold. Anything above copper will remain in solution
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=821



> Not allowing the other metals to evaporate?


The metals don't evaporate. The solution will evaporate from an open container, but the metals will stay in the pot.


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## butcher (Jan 13, 2010)

As GSP stated this uses the reactivity series of copper to precipitate your values from solution, basically cementing out your values, as powder, the acid and heat will replace your values with copper in solution and the copper will push out values from solution, 

Normally I would remove copper bar and brush it off in solution when I was sure that most all values have precipitated, as if the copper was left in for the whole evaporation process we would also add copper to the solution, which will take a little more nitric to eliminate in the nitric step, this can be done also in an acidic solution and if not too strongly heated (giving time to work) the copper would replace values in solution and only dissolve as much copper to saturate and replace free acid to a copper salt in solution, this can take some time (by boiling above we may add some more copper but speed up process),

The evaporation process will eiminate the oxidizer's like nitric in solution that will not let the gold precipitate, they are not easy to eliminate, this is the purpose of several boils with HCl additions,

The slow heating of these precipitates is because as we heat these salts of metals the acids concentrate and the anion portion starts to concentrate and drive off as gases, a dry powder will melt and liquify to a syrup and bubble off the gasses changing this chloride salt to a bubbling mass of chlorine releasing syrup, My feeling is too strong of heating at this point may possibly result in loss of gold either in hot gasses or sputtering bubbles popping, slowly raising heat just eases my mind and slowly releases chlorine gas (or what ever acid portion was to make these metal salts), and not my values,then raising the heat to red hot in air will oxidize the metal powders that will oxidize, I do not believe the gold would oxidize here, this will help later in the process, especially if there are troublesome base metals involved, and I believe would also help acids later in process not to have to use their power doing as much oxidizing, another point here is with this inceneration of metals we have eliminated the previous acid from these salts, (a salt is a metal disolved in an acid and forms crystals or salts of these metals, example: a silver chloride powder is a salt of the metal cation of silver, and the anion of the acid chloride, it still contains the chloride) (and if we dissolved this chloride salt in another acid such as nitric we would form aqua regia, which if we were not wanting to dissolve gold would defeat our purpose of just eliminating the base metals in nitric and leaving our gold undissolved), so roasting or inceneration drives out previous acid cation from salt.

A buss bar is just a chunk of copper, normally found in the electrical breaker panel,the bar that distributes main current to each breaker in the panel, the reason for not using copper wire is that it is a smaller surface area, and would dissolve easier in solution, and harder to clear of gold that may plate,
the copper bus bar is also electrically refined so has a higher purity, an alternative take a piece of new clean copper plumbing pipe (not quit as pure) about 6" long, cut it long ways slitting it, unroll it out to a flat plate punch a hole in it to hang it on a copper wire, sand off surface and use this as your copper buss bar.

read this carefully and hopefully it makes sense, I have a hard time explaining.


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 13, 2010)

First I would like to thank you for taking the time to explain that to me, that was alot of typing. Yes I think I understand but im going to read it a couple times before I do anything. I will look it over tonight a couple times then I will dive in tommorow. I will let you know how I make out. Again, Thank you all for your help. This site has been very helpful, thank god for computers and communities. 

Michele


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## michelemalatesta (Jan 13, 2010)

Oh by the way that link was very helpful as well. Thank you all for your support!


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## Harold_V (Jan 14, 2010)

butcher said:


> The evaporation process will eiminate the oxidizer's like nitric in solution that will not let the gold precipitate, they are not easy to eliminate, this is the purpose of several boils with HCl additions,


That isn't a requirement for cementing the values. Simply adding copper in a form that can be retrieved when the values are down is all it takes. I do not recommend any heating, aside from warming the solution if one is working in a cold environment. An attempt to evaporate anything can be a mistake in that you hope to have a solution that is not thick at the end of the cycle, so the cemented values will settle well. *It is VERY desirable that all base metals remain in solution*, so they can be separated from the cemented values. 

Reducing the volume of solution by evaporation isn't a requirement, in other words, and can work against you. 

One should look at the cementing of values as a recovery process, not a refining process. 

Harold


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## butcher (Jan 14, 2010)

Thanks Harold, You are right.
I did not know what all he added here, and was trying to cover the bases, both cementing and eliminating nitric, and I wasn't sure of the conditions of his solution, I was actually trying to suggest an overkill to make sure he recovered all his value's and start over, knowing he would also have more base metals in his incenerated powders.
from what I understood he could already have had a thick solution,
maybe I did not read it carefully enough, it sounded like a mess to me mud from other batches, computer electronic parts, possibly plated costume jewelery, I had no idea what base metals and then how thick after crock pot. and all the other chemicals added.
I figured he may have a hard time getting anything to precipitate easily and half way clean.


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## Harold_V (Jan 14, 2010)

In a situation such as you're describing, I think I'd do my best to get things to settle, incinerate, screen, do a dilute nitric wash, rinsing well, incinerate once again, then do a wash with HCl. I never encountered a batch that didn't respond to that kind of treatment, and, in the end, would filter without issues. One must use good judgment, and test along the way, using stannous chloride, to insure that values are not being lost. 

Assuming there was considerable waste material, including silver chloride, it might be a good idea to process the entire lot in the furnace, using a good flux, one with a thinner. A reasonable soak interval, plus the use of a collector (if necessary) would eliminate a great deal of the unwanted material. The resulting material is best poured to a cone mold. If there are sulfates present, the introduction of some scrap iron during the heat is a good idea. That liberates any values that may be bound as a sulfide. If that be the case, a center portion of the slag will be present, and look very much like gray cast iron. 

It can't be stressed enough, that materials that are to be processed should be clean, and absent unwanted materials. The entire process of refining is eliminating unwanted substances. The earlier they can be eliminated, the easier the process. Which method to use is often dependent on the nature of the material. There is no one way to deal with these things. 

Harold


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 2, 2010)

Ok I started over with new materials, I had some computer pins and 14k gold rings. I started with the peroxide and hcl. I did that process twice. I then proceeded with the muriatic acid and subzero. I boiled the solution several times to evaporate the nitric. I then added the precipitate, I used stump out. The solution was an emerald green. A bunch of crystals formed and I now have black in the bottom of the solution with crystals and the solution in a pale green color. Does anyone know what i may have done wrong? And what do you sugest I do from here. I haven't poured any of the solution off yet. This is the 4th time and each time I get a new problem.


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## Oz (Feb 2, 2010)

I did not go back over this thread but it sounds like a gold precipitation from a dirty solution is all, perhaps with too much precipitant. Did you filter your solution before precipitating? I do not know what subzero is but it sounds like you made a home brew AR with it. If so you will have lead and silver chloride sediment based on your source materials. 

Test your solution with stannic acid to be sure you have all the gold then you will need to clean up your precipitation. Your black stuff is your gold if you followed a reasonable procedure to get to this point. I do not know what else is in stump out but it may be your crystals or the lead and silver chloride I mentioned if you did not filter first. Buy some clean SMB, it is cheap.


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## butcher (Feb 2, 2010)

Michel,
where do we start?
it is obvious you have not read Hoke's book or much on the forum.
get Hoke's and read.

you started with copper pins (gold plated) any solder?
mixing these with karat gold was not a good idea.

peroxide and HCl will have a hard time doing much good here. as karat golds will hardly be attacked, pins would also have a hard time, unless cut to small pieces and heat and time was involved.

did these dissolve and how?

then you say muriatic and subzero (which I am asumming a nitrate fertilizer), which would make an aqua regia, I would be suprised the karat gold dissolved with out inquarting, (and you have salts as by product of subzero), and then your gold and base metals dissolved together,
the gold and copper, silver mostly chlorides, dissolving gold with base metals in homade aqua regia is not a good idea.
then you added stumpout, what type of stump remover? some more pottasium nitrate or was it sodium metabisulfite?
when did you evaporate off the NOx? the nitric will never let you have your gold as long as it has it dissolved in solution.

first thing I would try is denox, slowly evaporating down to syrup (keep an eye on it so you dont loose the gold in a foam over).
then add HCl to wet, do this three times total the last time add couple drops of sulfuric acid if the pins had solder (to make lead sulfate), add more than three times volume in water to dilute, let silver chloride settle overnight and in morning add a little Hcl to see if more forms, when all settled decant powders, filter solution, check with stannous chloride if possitive try more sodium metibisulfite.
(you also could have gold precipitated with the silver powders ?)

if gold still won't precipitate I would cement values with copper, put them in a jar (these will need reprocessed later). set jar in safe place, and get out hokes book and read it before I lost all my money and gold, get the understanding under your belt first, start with small expieriments, learn one process at a time. come on now you can do this, don't just jump into it without study, (if you do you might as well take your gold and put it back into the river, were some other miner has a chance of finding it, because processing gold without an understanding it you will lose it anyway. good luck & get Hokes and a cup of coffee.


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 2, 2010)

I filtered the solution 3 times with coffee filters and then twice with filter paper. I may have used to much stump out. I read on here that stump out is metabysulfate, if I spelled that right. I will check in the morning to see if there is any gold left in the solution. The solution has a very strong odor.

If there is no gold in the solution do you suggest I pour it off?
how do I separate the crystals from the black sediment? 
Do I need to start over?
How do I know what the pale green solution is? I'm asking because I need to know how to properly dispose of it when i'm done. 

Thank you for your reply. 
Michele


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## butcher (Feb 2, 2010)

dilute see if crystals dissolve may be salt, green is probably copper chloride,maybe some nickel, test all solutions with stannous chloride, to see if gold dissolved in solution,
only one brand of stump remover is sodium metabisulfite, also called pyrosulfite, Bonide brand I believe,

after all gold out of solution Iron will dissplace metals below it in series, then a base will neutralize solution, read up on dealing with waste, 

the most important thing you need, is to read up on processing.
we need to learn to walk before we run., reading will remove the blindfolds you have tied around your eyes, and then you will be able to see, these trees you keep bumping into while you are running through this forest.


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 2, 2010)

Thank you for your replies, I did read hokes, watched videos bought and watched steves dvd on pgms. Ive been so concerned with the chemical process and making sure I use the correct amout of each chemical that I havent been paying much attention to the other part of the process, the metals.

I did heat the solution when I did the muriatic acid and peroxide. I did that process several times thinking that the heated process would get rid of all the base metals. 

I then moved to the aqua regia process and when I did that, there were very few pins left. The rings were all still in tact, I did hammer them before I started and they were very thin and flat. This process was also heated several times. I did this whole process over 3 days. All the metals were dissolved.

I then went on to filter, several times. 

I do think I added to much stump out, which is bonide, i got it off the chemical substitude list. 

Thank you for your patients, it may be taking me a little longer to understand this whole process...there is alot to learn. 

Michele


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## butcher (Feb 3, 2010)

you'll get it, there is alot to learn, reading Harolds posts, and Hokes, one day the light will come on and will just blind you, from the reflection of your gold bar.


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## Harold_V (Feb 3, 2010)

I noticed a comment that may be a serious part of your problem. You said "I did heat the solution when I did the muriatic acid and peroxide. I did that process several times thinking that the heated process would get rid of all the base metals."

Red flag time. 

Is it safe to assume that what you are saying is that you repeated the process, decanting the base metal solutions each time? Please tell me you didn't evaporate the solution time and again without discarding the dissolved base metals. 

When you undertake this operation, it's very important that you test the solution with stannous chloride, to insure you are not discarding any values. 

As far as base metals go, the purpose in dissolving them is to eliminate them. Before you put any of the values in solution, the base metal solutions should be decanted, with the remaining solids rinsed well a few times to remove all residual traces. Tap water is perfectly acceptable for the rinse operation, assuming it is fit for culinary purposes. You may be told time and again that you must use distilled water, but I refined for better than 20 years and never used distilled water in my gold refining processes. My quality was superb. 

Harold


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 3, 2010)

Hi Harold,

I did rinse the remaining metals before going to the next step, I also tested the solution as well. I also saved all of my solutions. (just in case) I did learn something that I read and saving the solutions keeps sticking in my head at least until I have a solid understanding of what I am doing. I have a cooler full of them. Thank you for your concern. I havent thrown anything out yet....waiting for the perfect time and the way i'm going it may be later than sooner. That was also stressed in the book as well. 

I will be working on all of your much appreciated suggestions in the morning and I will keep you posted on what I have. 

Thank you again
Michele


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## Harold_V (Feb 3, 2010)

michelemalatesta said:


> I will be working on all of your much appreciated suggestions in the morning and I will keep you posted on what I have.


I'll keep watch, and offer suggestions if you'd like. 

Harold


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 3, 2010)

Ok, I checked the solution and it still tests for gold. The test turns a light brown. I turned the heat on as you suggested. I'm going to let it heat for a while. I'm not sure if you understood that I did not decant any of the solution. This is what I have. I have a black substance in the bottom covered by a white substance and the solution on top is a light greenish blue. 

My plan is to let it heat up for a while and then add a little hcl? Then let the solutin evaporate and add more hcl? Then let it settle and add some smb to see if I can retrieve the rest of the gold. 

If I understand correctly, the black on the bottom is gold and the white is silver? 

When I am sure that all of the gold is out of the solution with the test, I am going to decant and then heat up the black and white substance on the bottom adding a little hcl? 

Then I will need to hit it with a torch to bring the metals to a solid and start over?

Let me know how I did?

Thanks guys, This forumn has been very helpful and it is very generous of you all to share your knowledge. 

Michele


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## butcher (Feb 3, 2010)

Harold will also help here.
don't let my help get in the way of his, as Harold advise would be best. being patient and waiting for his help would also be a good idea.
don't use torch yet!
you possibly have base metals in solution with gold. 
and metal powders in bottom possible gold,silver, base metals.
I would decant what has precipitated thus far, wash it for retreatment, adding wash solutions together,after a wash using Harolds instruction,( later these powders can be re-treated with HCl/bleach, it is easier to rid oxidizer, lead and silver can be filtered out in this process, wait before treating them Harold may have another suggestion). 
solution, that tested positive for gold. which may still contain oxidizer, using the evaporation process to rid possible oxidizer.
Harolds trick if you have a little piece of gold to add, it can help use up any nitric that may be left in this solution,this can save time and amount of evaporations needed.
I would also keep forum posted of steps taken and wait for more help before going further with other steps.


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 3, 2010)

This is what I did, 

I let it sit today on heat, not a boil, I was afraid of boiling off my precious metals. I checked the solutin and after the test it did not show any gold. I decanted off the solution and let the mud at the bottom heat a little to get rid of excess acid. I added some hcl and let it heat a little again. I have brown mud in the bottom. I'm going to let that sit for the night and then rinse the mud in the morning as Harold suggested. If you think I missed something please feel free to let me know. 

Thanks again 
Michele


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## Harold_V (Feb 4, 2010)

michelemalatesta said:


> This is what I did,
> 
> I let it sit today on heat, not a boil, I was afraid of boiling off my precious metals. I checked the solutin and after the test it did not show any gold. I decanted off the solution and let the mud at the bottom heat a little to get rid of excess acid. I added some hcl and let it heat a little again. I have brown mud in the bottom. I'm going to let that sit for the night and then rinse the mud in the morning as Harold suggested. If you think I missed something please feel free to let me know.
> 
> ...


Assuming you have recovered all of the values, the next step, even if you intend to re-refine the yield, is to wash the resulting powder. I recommend you do that at a full boil, so the agitation keeps the material moving. Your objective is to eliminate traces of dissolved base metals that don't readily leave the material. I expect you have a beaker and a watch glass. Use HCl and tap water for the wash cycles. Boil the material for several minutes, than add more water, to cool and dilute the solution. Allow to settle, then decant. Make sure that you have clear solution (it may be colored, but there should be NO gold in suspension). If the gold is quite dirty, which I expect to be the case, the gold may not settle quickly. Rinse once with tap water, bringing the material to a boil once again. After a brief boil, fill the container with tap water, stir, then allow to settle. Decant (siphoning using a 3/8" vinyl hose works very well. You can control the speed of discharge by varying the height of the discharge end. As long as it is below the intake, it will flow, faster as you lower the discharge end). Now repeat the wash operation, using ammonium hydroxide. This is an important step, for it will eliminate any traces of silver that may have hitched a ride as silver chloride, plus it will help eliminate traces of copper. Boil hard, take up with water, stir, and allow to settle. Decant, rinse with water once again, then repeat the HCl wash and rinse cycles. Sounds like a lot of work, but it's routine and will improve the quality of your gold immensely. 

If, after you have completed the wash and rinse cycles, the color of your gold is still quite dark, I highly recommend you re-refine. If you feel you'd like to do that, maybe you can post a question in that regard. Unless you are satisfied with the end result, you should not melt the powder. It's very easy to re-dissolve precipitated gold for re-refining, so it should remain as a powder for convenience. 

Luck. 

Harold


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## glorycloud (Feb 4, 2010)

What great moderators and mentors we have here!

Let's not take them for granted!! 8)


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 4, 2010)

I agree glorycloud...I appreciate all of the help and support here...I hope one day I will be able to return the generosity. 

Harold, I will do as you advised. I first have to go purhase a new burner...Mine gave out on me. I will keep you posted. 

Thank you again )
Michele


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 5, 2010)

Hi Harold,

You said that the wash with ammonium hydroxide is very important, can I use 3% ammonia? I cant seem to find ammonium hydroxide. 

Thank you Michele


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## Harold_V (Feb 5, 2010)

Use what ever you can find, although I think I'd recommend against using anything scented. I used to buy it in plastic gallons from a chemcial distributor. Don't recall the concentration. 
That which comes from the local grocery store should be acceptable. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 5, 2010)

For the weak stuff at the grocery store (or, wherever), the cheapest ammonia usually has the least additives and is the best. It should look like water, not foam when shaken, and not have a fragrance. When you smell it, don't stick your nose over it. Wave some fumes from it to your nose.


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## michelemalatesta (Feb 11, 2010)

Hi Guys, I'm back....sorry it took so long to update you,,,,I had a family member in the hospital....


I went ahead and followed through with my batch as you sugested, had a few problems...I was doing it outside and my glass broke...I recovered everything and started over with the clorox and muriatic acid. filtered and added the smb. I now have a nice brown product. Im just waiting for it to dry out so that I can melt it. 

Thank you all for your help...

My next step is to get into my cooler and work on the bucket that has the copper hanging in it. I will read back in this post for what you sugested. 

Again, I really appreciate all your help and patience. 

Michele


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