# Gold stuck to beaker after precipitation. Recover values?



## lanfear (May 28, 2014)

Hi guys. After one year of AP I have now embarked on my next recovery journey.
This time I tried my first ceramic cpu's in AR. I followed samuel-a's youtube description, and it went pretty good. I processed 12 Intel 486 with removed lids.
I used my nitric moderately and took my time with the reactions. When I precipitated I got this result:


I was very happy with this beautiful gold result. untill I decanted my waste solution, washed and dried my gold. Then I got this


So I searched the forum and found out that my beaker was dirty, and that I could remove the gold stuck to the beaker with a filter paper. So I did that. I recovered most of the gold. The rest is in the filter and is going to the high value filter pile.
And then to my questions. If I had chosen to skip the filter wiping and just re-refine with hcl-cl and then precipitated again in the same beaker, would I not just run into the same problem? And my second question: Is it not always a good idea to wipe the precipitation vessel with a filter paper to recover additional values?


----------



## Palladium (May 28, 2014)

Yes you could have re-refined it in the same beaker dissolving the gold that was stuck to the beaker. Then during the filter stage while the liquid was out of the beaker you could have either cleaned the beaker or switched to a clean beaker.


----------



## 4metals (May 28, 2014)

If your glassware is really dirty this stuff is awesome. http://godax.com/

And for routine cleaning this does an exceptional job. http://www.amazon.com/Alconox-Detergent-Cleaning-Concentrate-Container/dp/B0000WU828

clean glassware is essential to keeping the precipitated gold from adhering to the glass.

I have had clients who couldn't get consistent results in fire assaying. The culprit was dirty glassware. The funny thing was it looked clean but the water did cling to the sides in droplets. 

We cleaned all of the beakers and glassware used with No Chromix followed by Alconox and the assays started coming out perfect, matching all 3 cups. In an assay a little bit clinging on can mean big errors in the assay result.


----------



## goldenchild (May 29, 2014)

Does anyone else use plain old rubbing alcohol to clean their glassware? I use a bottle of alcohol and a roll of toilet paper. It's very cheap and lasts so long.


----------



## etack (May 29, 2014)

goldenchild said:


> Does anyone else use plain old rubbing alcohol to clean their glassware? I use a bottle of alcohol and a roll of toilet paper. It's very cheap and lasts so long.



Use coffee filters they are poor-mans kimwipes. This is a window cleaning trick so you don't leave any fibers on the glass.

Eric


----------



## dannlee (May 29, 2014)

My last go-around I made the first step of final clean-up making a very small batch of fresh AR to leech anything left over after first run - a boil of the different lots of ash chunk left, then the AR cleaned the flask(s), funnel(s) and stirring rods/scrapers/spoons, then used the AR on the filter ash. Neat feeling seeing the AR going yellower from the glassware, it got diluted a lot from rinsings but evaporated down to a nice jelly - and converted five or seven filters down to the one used in clean up. Fiddy work like that is where a fume hood rules!


----------



## lanfear (May 30, 2014)

Thanks guys. Then I will clean my beaker before the re-refining. When it is good and clean would it be possible to keep using the same beaker for precipitation without cleaning for a while? The reason I am thinking this is that it would be a good way to not loose values. Does anyone have experience with this?
Thanks.
Regards 
Jon


----------



## Lou (May 30, 2014)

If you want to save money on the glassware cleaning, 10% KOH and balance 91% isopropanol does a trick.

The dichromate free stuff is probably ammonium peroxydisulfate in sulfuric acid--also works great.

Sonicating in 30% nitric acid also cleans fire assay glass really well.


----------



## Palladium (May 30, 2014)

Will i don't necessarily clean my production beakers between runs i always clean my precipitation beaker after each use. I keep an old beaker that i cracked a ways back and when i have removed all the gold that i can from the beaker with a stir rod i take a squirt bottle and rinse the residues in that old beaker. After that i will wipe it with a piece of paper towel and that goes in my filter paper bucket. You could just also use a paper towel and wipe it, but the object of the game is to set up procedures that stops the gold from migrating down the line. True a good refiner will catch it in the next step, or the one after that. About every 6 months that little jar pays off in spades!


----------



## 4metals (May 31, 2014)

Every refiner has a bucket to collect papers from stannous testing and wiping things out and as Palladium said it is always nice to burn those papers and refine that material to recover some lost profit. 

If you process correctly there is still gold you will not get immediately, like that black drop from the stannous chloride positive test. All of that comes back in the end. 

I know refiners who gas with SO2 and the insides of the rods get a coating of gold. It is not possible to get it all off to put it back with the job lot it came from so they store their "gas out rods" in a tall cylinder of aqua regia which cleans them up perfectly. The acid turns a beautiful shade of red and the gold comes out just like it comes out of any acid you refine.


----------



## goldsilverpro (May 31, 2014)

I rarely used beakers to drop gold in. I always used 5 gallon buckets. I'm an avid 3 to 1 AR diluter (to eliminate the silver) and I always had a lot of solution. Gold powder clings to the plastic more than to glass. Also, it gets trapped in the inevitable scratches. I cut a piece of green 3M Scotch-Brite about 1/2" square, put it on the tip of my finger, and scrubbed down the wet inside of the bucket. All the gold is then loose and it can all be easily collected in a pile at the bottom with water from a squirt bottle. Repeat the scrub and rinse to get that last little bit. Probably takes a total of 2 minutes. It's amazing how clean you can easily get the bucket with just water and how much gold you sometimes get from the bucket. 

Everything has to be wet before you start scrubbing and kept wet until all the gold is rinsed to the bottom. I wet the entire inside of the bucket with water from a lab squirt bottle. It the gold dries on the bucket before rinsing it down, you have to wet it and scrub it again. 

Some gold will get into the Scotch-Brite but it doesn't stick much or seem to build up. Most was easily rinsed out. I just squeezed at it, over the bucket, with my fingers, and rinsed it and my fingers, over the bucket, with a lab type squirt bottle. I never cut more than one piece of Scotch-Brite at a time. One piece will work forever if you don't lose it. I always had 2 or 3 gold precipitation buckets (always white) that had been used, since new, for nothing but dropping gold. The only solutions in the bucket were invariably AR and that would dissolve any traces of gold left on the bucket.

Scotch-Brite works the same on beakers but I would use the blue variety to eliminate scratching the glass.


----------



## dpgold (May 5, 2022)

Palladium said:


> Yes you could have re-refined it in the same beaker dissolving the gold that was stuck to the beaker. Then during the filter stage while the liquid was out of the beaker you could have either cleaned the beaker or switched to a clean beaker.


it happened to me too, gold clings to plastic bucket, glass pipete etc, don't know what to wash it with, water won't work


----------



## Shark (May 5, 2022)

Read the quote you posted from Palladium. The first sentence is your answer,


----------



## Shark (May 5, 2022)

To add more read GSP’s post as well, he describes a very good way to clean buckets as well.


----------



## dpgold (May 5, 2022)

4metals said:


> If your glassware is really dirty this stuff is awesome. Nochromix® Replacement
> 
> And for routine cleaning this does an exceptional job. Alconox Detergent Cleaning Concentrate 4 lb. Container: Science Lab Detergents: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
> 
> ...


If the container is plastic how would you clean gold clinging on?


----------



## Shark (May 5, 2022)

goldsilverpro said:


> I rarely used beakers to drop gold in. I always used 5 gallon buckets. I'm an avid 3 to 1 AR diluter (to eliminate the silver) and I always had a lot of solution. Gold powder clings to the plastic more than to glass. Also, it gets trapped in the inevitable scratches. I cut a piece of green 3M Scotch-Brite about 1/2" square, put it on the tip of my finger, and scrubbed down the wet inside of the bucket. All the gold is then loose and it can all be easily collected in a pile at the bottom with water from a squirt bottle. Repeat the scrub and rinse to get that last little bit. Probably takes a total of 2 minutes. It's amazing how clean you can easily get the bucket with just water and how much gold you sometimes get from the bucket.
> 
> Everything has to be wet before you start scrubbing and kept wet until all the gold is rinsed to the bottom. I wet the entire inside of the bucket with water from a lab squirt bottle. It the gold dries on the bucket before rinsing it down, you have to wet it and scrub it again.
> 
> ...


----------



## Martijn (May 6, 2022)

dpgold said:


> If the container is plastic how would you clean gold clinging on?


By reading anything. You will shock the time space continuum so much, all powder will surrender to gravity. 
Yes, i'm being rude. 
Time for more coffee.


----------

