# Ap Process Help



## kmiles412 (Mar 8, 2009)

Hello all,

Newbie in action.  Help Steve.
I've been reading 6 hours a day trying to absorb everything.

I put 3 oz. of old finger foils, not the fingers, that someone else peeled, in AP (2 cup/1 cup ratio), it quickly went very dark green/brown. It was 25'F out. After a while i drained the solution thinking i saturated it. Saving it of course. I repeated it again. Same results. On the third wash it went light green. I think i finally got it. I let it set overnight, because i saw brown still on the underside of the foils. The temp went up to 55'F out and when i got home my foils were gone,  and the solution was at 4 1/2 cups, i could see yellow on the underside of the loose cover, i evporated some of my gold.   

How do i reclaim it? Dilute 3 times with water, put SMB (ite) in water, stir in, and hope for brown mud?

What is the brown on the underside of the foils? I have 8 pounds of the fingers to go yet.

How do i get the PM's out of the used solution before processing with iron to dispose properly?

Last i have a pound of plated punch plugs that are magnetic. I put a small amount in AP to see reaction. It fizzed each time i stirred. after a day i'm starting to see a few flakes but can tell its gonna take a long time to get thru the plating. Suggestions?

Thanks
Keith


----------



## lazersteve (Mar 8, 2009)

Keith,



kmiles412 said:


> How do i reclaim it?


I would either use the saturated brown AP that was poured off or add zinc and precipitate everything, then treat the powder with hot HCl, rinse and dissolve the remaining powder with AR or HCl-Cl. 



kmiles412 said:


> What is the brown on the underside of the foils?


 It's likely gold that has been precipitated by the copper going into solution. Since you poured off the AP when it became enriched with copper chloride, you set yourself up to dissolve the foils. It's best to use an air bubbler to rejuvenate the brown AP to keep the gold foils intact. It's common to dissolve gold when high strength, excessive, or fresh peroxide is used. AP should actually be named Copper Chloride II (CuCl2) etch as this is the active ingredient, not acid or peroxide. When it turns brown it is saturated with Copper in the form of CuCl (Copper I Chloride) which is easily converter back to CuCl2 with air and 3 molar (~10% ) HCl. You should take the time to read the copper chloride document on my website in the documents section.



kmiles412 said:


> I have 8 pounds of the fingers to go yet


 I would master the small scale experiment before moving to any larger batches. When you get it right your foils will be intact and your solution will not test positive for gold with stannous chloride (maybe very lightly on the first run). Rushing the reaction by adding too much peroxide, fresh AP solution, or excessive heat are the main mess ups. Properly used AP is slow, but effective.



kmiles412 said:


> How do i get the PM's out of the used solution before processing with iron to dispose properly?


If the solution is light blue green and tests positive for gold, then add some zinc as suggested above. If it is dark brown it's likely contains no gold at all. Stannous testing is the best way to find out.



kmiles412 said:


> Last i have a pound of plated punch plugs that are magnetic. I put a small amount in AP to see reaction. It fizzed each time i stirred. after a day i'm starting to see a few flakes but can tell its gonna take a long time to get thru the plating.


Add an air bubbler and wait it out. Once the foils are lifted off you can remove the pins that are stripped if they are large.

Steve


----------



## kmiles412 (Mar 8, 2009)

Hello Steve,

Thank you, as always for your help and wisdom.

I took some of the AP solution with dissolved gold, diluted it, and added some SMB before getting your reply and have a cloudy solution with a little brown powder starting to settle. Its not really very much. I filtered it and it cleared the solution. i'll check for any values next.

Any problems with that? 

What if i put zinc in the solution with SMB added? I added a couple of drops of zinc to see and it put a brown cloud floating together on top of the solution and smelled strong of sulfer? 

I'm using the zinc powder for the clean gold solution, instead of putting it back into the copper solution. I like to see the reactions while learning. 
Should i dilute it first? After i drop with zinc should i add the zinc solution in with the saved AP from the beginning?

These are old fingers, and i know you can't see thru the computer  , but old ones, any guess on what i should have got for gold. I started with 3 oz. peeled.

Has there been any discussion on eddy current to seperate crushed board powder? I'm getting ready to do an experiment, making my own bench size conveyor to seperate the materials quickly and it will seperate the iron, board, and other metals. Saw a machine that will do it but very expensive. 

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you  
Keith


----------

