# Heating the can



## Froggy (Feb 7, 2008)

I'm not the guiness that some of you are, I am still wondering if I could hook the converter can's to something (power source) that would send a current through them and heat them up? kina like a stove element? get em' nice and red for awhile then blow some air , should take care of the carbons? Thx, Frog


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## Anonymous (Feb 7, 2008)

just thinking out loud, but maybe you could just blow heated air through them and the cat will burn off the carbon? I think you could use a blower,
electric heat element and a adapter to match the inlet pipe sizes on the cats. You could easily get 1000 degree air and that should get the reaction going. 

Are you going to grind the cats? please tell PETA not to worry. :lol: 
If you are you should goolge fluidized bed burning you could treat a large quanity with hot air to burn off carbon.

I am a HVAC/R & electrician if you need help with the bed or heater 
for air I could help.

Jim


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## Froggy (Feb 7, 2008)

Wouldnt hooking up the can to electricity, make the can the heating strip? Then you would just need a little cheap hairdryer to blow through air? That would give the can a nice even heat? I'm not grinding the material, I prefer nice chunks for a good flow, I do prefer to heat the material still in the can, just seems easier to get a even flow across all the substrate( how bout that, I used substrate instead of honeycomb, I'm getting smart on this forum :lol: )...... I would be interested in your method, just trying to picture it in my mind! Sounds like your thinking of a hairdryer on steroids? Frog


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## Ian_B (Feb 7, 2008)

I wouldn't try hooking it up to the electricity because it would just blow the breaker or even worse cause an electrical fire.

That is if I understand what you are trying to say.

I think that what james is saying would be the best idea for what you are trying to do. Heater coil off of a electric stove with a blower of some sort.


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## markqf1 (Feb 7, 2008)

I think he's right frog.
You would probably cause some kind of meltdown.
Maybe you could try hooking it to the leads of a welder.
I would be careful though, ... sounds like a easy way to get hurt.


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## Froggy (Feb 7, 2008)

Thx, i didnt really mean hooking it up to the ends of a spliced elec. cord or anything! That would be exciting. but rather run current thru it just like the coils are on a stove ,( I have seen commercial shrink wrap hairdryer looking things but I dont know how hot they get?) just seems it would easy to hook it to a rectifier? or something and heat it up, heck the current would even be adjustable? I couldnt imagine what it would take to have something that blows out 1ooo degree hot air, my propane bbq doesnt get that hot, I tried!


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## markqf1 (Feb 7, 2008)

Check out heating elements for clothes dryers.
Some of them are circular and cylindrical.
Might be just what the doctor ordered if it gets hot enough.


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## Anonymous (Feb 7, 2008)

Frog, using electric to heat the can by running current tough the can would take huge amperage. A hair dryer on steroids is the general idea. 
You would need electrical element you can get them for rewiring electric furnaces for 20 - 40.00 or so, carefully wind into a coil and put a blower on, I would think a draft inducer with a biult in centipital switch (to operate a relay, to save you heat coil from melting if the blower stalls or does not start) would work wonders. You would most likely be into a 
system like this for $200.00 with new parts. I would check with heating/air repair shops and they may be able to hook you up with used stuff for free or next to nothing.

If you like I could keep my eyes open for a blower, I would however buy a new coil so it wouldn't be brittal and you could shape it to fit your heater tube. 

You could also, use an external fire with SS tubing as a heat exchanger and if you have an old sweeper or a leaf blower blow fresh air through the exchanger and into your cats before cutting the can.
I think the above would really work because you can get the air extemely hot without worrying about element melting or SS melting for more speed.


if you want I will do a drawing and email to you or try to post here, but I do not know how to add a drawing.

Jim


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## Anonymous (Feb 7, 2008)

I couldnt imagine what it would take to have something that blows out 1ooo degree hot air, my propane bbq doesnt get that hot, I tried!

Frog, the heat to make air that hot is a function of volume and energy
your bbq does not get that hot because it is open to the air and it is diluted.

You can have air that hot with at a reasonal volume at no more than 20 amps at 220v would give you nearly 5000 watts which would be a little over 15000 btu/hr, 1 btu will raise 1 lb of air 1 degree so you can see
if you pump 15 lb of air through in 1 hour it will be 1000 degrees (I may be off on the specific heat of air its been awhile). so you would have conservitely 15 lb of air at 1000 degrees per hour. That would be
190 or so cubic feet of air. disclaimer from memory, if you want I can get the books out and give exact figures. I however do not think you need 1000 degrees most likely only 400 or 500.

Well gotta go.

Jim


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## Froggy (Feb 7, 2008)

I think im getting the idea! thx would love a drawing, if you get around to it,,, Frog UPDATE ***SOLUTION found , heat gun at homedepot 30-50$$$ 1000-1200degrees***Hairdryer on steroids, worked great ,,, burned carbon right off, wwhhhoooeee its hot ,,,Jim you were right on the money with your figures,,,,, thx guys..


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## alancj (Feb 9, 2008)

Hey frog, too bad you didn't buy your heat gun from these guys: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=35776 I bought one at a store locally and it is quite nice. It reaches the temp it says, and the price is right at 10 bucks! 

But I have a question, is the goal here to mealy decompose the hydrocarbons into carbon or to oxidize the carbon to CO2? It would seem that to get rid of all carbon deposits we would surely need to be heating the cat material to bright read heat, just as hot as charcoal burns. And if you guys are talking Fahrenheit then 400-700 degrees probably wouldn't do it. I recently did a small test batch with 250g of beads in a steel container heating to a dull red with a weed burner for 10 minutes. After treating with Aqua Regia, I got a lot of black precipitate which I believe is carbon. There wasn’t much air flow so that could have be the problem. 

The cheapest way to deal with a lot of converters might be to heat the whole converter in a bead of coals, and blow air through them with a steel pipe with branches for each converter. Lay out, say, 10, side by side. Charcoal form the store would get expensive, so it would be good to use scrap (free) wood, if possible.

-Alan


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## Harold_V (Feb 9, 2008)

It takes more than heat. Carbon, as I recall, oxidizes at somewhere around 1100°F. It must have oxygen to convert to CO2----so a hot bed of coals isn't likely to provide what is needed. The air, rising through the bed of coals, is absent of free oxygen, having been consumed by the fuel below. Yes, I understand that you mentioned piping air to the cats. I still think you're chasing your tail. 

You guys are missing the boat where it comes to dealing with this material by furnace. Instead of melting, you should be thinking about dissolving. That's the way silicon is dealt with. It melts at about the same temperature as platinum, yet it is put in solution at much lower temps, regularly, by dissolving instead of melting. Fluorspar is an excellent solvent, but keep in mind, it's just as hard on furnace lining as it is the charge. That's the problem with dealing with ceramics. 

One other thing that appears to be escaping common logic here is that even if you melt the materials in question, in spite of the weight of these metals, they rarely will agglomerate and collect in the bottom. That would be particularly true of something that is as finely divided as it is in catalytic converters. A collector of some nature may well be required to effectively recover the values if you resort to melting as the method of operation. That will require an operation to sort the values from the collector. Has anyone addressed this issue?

Frankly, I'm of the opinion that most of you guys would be far better served to put your energy into recovering gold, even if it was only from electronic scrap. The investment you'll have to make to recover the platinum group is likely to be far more than you're prepared to pay, and its going to get harder and harder to procure the old cats unless the market does a serious turn-around. 

But then, I'm not much of a dreamer------sort of realist, and serious minded, really. :wink: 

Harold


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## Anonymous (Feb 9, 2008)

Alan, my suggestion should require less heat because you use the catalytic ability of the convertor to your advantage and you are blowing fresh hot air in to react with the carbon and left over hydrocarbons which would burn giving you more available heat energy. You are right if you are trying to vaporize or evaporate carbon you need I believe like 5000 degrees and that would be a serious drain on your profits.


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## Froggy (Feb 9, 2008)

Well, even if some carbon is left, it would just collect a few pgm's and settle, just collect ,filter,dry, an send in to be assayd, right? Harold, your thoughts on making $ on cats are disturbing to me, surely a few out there are making $ doing this? If not then action mining's sytem, is just fraud, and we know the problems with the platinumill. I would love to do gold, easy to work with,easy to get rid off, but finding large amounts as a newby would be difficult, I love gold! lots of competition for scrap and everyone kinda knows the values. Cats on the other hand, no one really understands Step 1 to the end "how to put cash in your pocket", as I mentioned in a earlier post,to get paid for this material it has to be refined and sold, and theres where one of the problems lies. Refining cat material not something the average guy can do,unlike gold......


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## Anonymous (Feb 9, 2008)

I like Harold idea of dissolving the Pt. Molten lead may be a easy to melt metal that would dissolve it and Pd not sure about Rh. I could easily see a
heated drum with cat material in it heated to the high end of leads molten state rotating and washing the PMs off of the material. That would be fairly easy to build when rotation stops the lead could collect in the bottom and be tapped off. Also you could just scrap of the ceramic after processing, add more raw material, and keep going until the lead was pretty rich then with a big cupel recover your metals, no resin, no complex chemicals just a bead of pd, pt, rh when you are done.

Jim


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## Harold_V (Feb 9, 2008)

Froggy said:


> Harold, your thoughts on making $ on cats are disturbing to me, surely a few out there are making $ doing this?


There's a fellow in Utah that I have talked with via telephone that claims he has worked out the kinks and was extracting the values to his satisfaction. He contacted me about three years ago, long after I had moved from Utah, so I don't know him on a personal basis, and I have no idea if he's following this forum, or not. I have not spoken to him in over a year. Last time we talked, he and his brother had made connections with a refinery in Germany and were waiting for payment of their spoils, which he claimed were in the six figure area. 

Can people, even the small guy, make money on cats? Probably. But take a serious look at reality. It may well require equipment beyond the reach of the average guy, and the average guy may never establish the necessary contacts to liquidate the values. Major refiners are not easy to penetrate, nor do they appear to appreciate competition, regardless of the nature of the competition. Assuming you do business with them, based on my experiences of the past, you'll get short changed at every opportunity, relieving you of any excessive profit you may hope to gain. 

I submitted a large lot of impure platinum sponge to two different refineries. One of them told me right up front how badly I'd get screwed, while the other was somewhat more underhanded and settled at a lower number than they quoted, that after I had submitted a representative sample of the material in question. 

A wise person will look at recovering values from cats objectively, not from the perspective of making a killing. You may well find you can't make more than a living wage, and you'll earn every dime by sweat. If you're working towards an unreasonable income, I'm of the opinion that you'll be very disappointed. If you are fascinated by the process, and are willing to operate at a small profit, you may be well satisfied. 

No way to know which of us is right in this issue. Those that are dedicated will expend the necessary energy, and will eventually conclude that one of us had the right idea. I'm hoping I'm wrong-----but in my opinion, it's a long shot that I am. If there's fast and easy money to be made, there are people with means that are usually first on the scene. The average guy, without one hell of a lot of good fortune, doesn't normally stand a chance. 

Let us all know how things go. We're pulling for you! :wink: 

Harold


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## alancj (Feb 9, 2008)

Harold_V said:


> It takes more than heat. Carbon, as I recall, oxidizes at somewhere around 1100°F. It must have oxygen to convert to CO2----so a hot bed of coals isn't likely to provide what is needed. The air, rising through the bed of coals, is absent of free oxygen, having been consumed by the fuel below. Yes, I understand that you mentioned piping air to the cats. I still think you're chasing your tail.
> 
> You guys are missing the boat where it comes to dealing with this material by furnace. Instead of melting, you should be thinking about dissolving.
> 
> ...



Harold, I'm aware of how combustion works... which is why I didn't understand comments about heating to only a few hundred degrees. Carbon doesn't burn that low, like you said. My suggestion was to heat the whole cat, metal can and all, and pass air through it. Not through a bead of coals and into the cat like you may have misunderstood (?) or heat it alone completely buried and isolated. But FYI, hot CO2 reacts with carbon to form CO, so you don't strictly need pure air to remove your carbon. Also, I don't know where you are getting the idea that we're trying to melt the material, this thread is about burning the carbon off, so far as I can tell. Obviously you'd need far more than charcoal to melt alumina, which makes a great refractory because of its heat tolerance (hence industry using plasma arc furnaces).



james122964 said:


> Alan, my suggestion should require less heat because you use the catalytic ability of the convertor to your advantage and you are blowing fresh hot air in to react with the carbon and left over hydrocarbons which would burn giving you more available heat energy. You are right if you are trying to vaporize or evaporate carbon you need I believe like 5000 degrees and that would be a serious drain on your profits.



LOL. No… I certainly wasn’t talking about evaporating carbon. I just doubt that the platinum would help you burn off the carbon. I don’t know that for sure, however. We are, in fact, talking about doing the exact same thing. You use electricity for heat and I’m using combustion. And I think it needs to be twice as hot. Like you suggested a fluidized bed reactor would be best for doing a lot if you are trying to do hundreds of cats a month. (Well, I don’t think you would need a current of air so strong to actually “fluidize” your material, you just need to keep it in an oxidizing atmosphere.) But if you have a few… and are just doing this for the hell of it like I am, then it doesn’t make much sense to build a rather complex system to treat just 10 cats. Building a bonfire is about as cheap as it gets in my book. 

Personally, I don’t have ANY cats, just 40 lbs of converter beads I got on ebay that I want to extract the platinum from for my own uses here in my lab (garage . Right now I’m working on processing a small test batch of 250 g of beads to gauge how much I may get from the whole lot, and discovered that the carbon was absolute hell to filter out, even using a pressure filter at 85 psi. I had to do it several times and it took many hours each trip through. One of these days I’ll start a thread about it…

Have a good weekend everyone,
-Alan


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## Froggy (Feb 9, 2008)

Harold, wish you had an email or some kind of contact info.... Trial and error can cost a bit in this operation,,, We have the same viewpoint about the difficulties, I have worked really hard just to figure out how to get paid for this venture, I have put in many hrs. getting info that you just cant google. The guys you mention may be tight lipped anyways, but the process is there. Its just all the other non-published information that will discourage someone, that doesnt have the "can do" drive that I have. Frog[/list]


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## Harold_V (Feb 9, 2008)

alancj said:


> Harold_V said:
> 
> 
> > It takes more than heat. Carbon, as I recall, oxidizes at somewhere around 1100°F. It must have oxygen to convert to CO2----so a hot bed of coals isn't likely to provide what is needed. The air, rising through the bed of coals, is absent of free oxygen, having been consumed by the fuel below. Yes, I understand that you mentioned piping air to the cats. I still think you're chasing your tail.
> ...



Heating the entire converter will require far more energy than heating only the ceramic portion, so I have mixed emotions about the entire concept. Handling the pellets would present their own problems, so perhaps heating as an assembly would be the best way to go. My experience with the pellets is limited to one attempt, years ago, and I wasn't impressed. 

As for melting, my comments were directed to a different thread, secure in the knowledge that those that are reading that one would also read this one. The idea of melting ceramics in order to recover the metallic values is absurd. The temperatures required would be the equal of most refractories that are at anyone's disposal------so how would you contain the fluid ceramic materials, and how would one recover the values when they are so finely divided? Heat alone will not cause the metal to agglomerate. That was the point I was making-----in no way did I interpret your comments as trying to melt the material. I fully understand your post------I just don't think it's a solution. I also think I can be wrong. 

Harold


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## Harold_V (Feb 9, 2008)

Froggy said:


> Harold, wish you had an email or some kind of contact info.... ]



I can be reached easily by PM-----so if you have reason to contact me, feel free. I don't know that I'd be much help with catalytic converters, but I'm open to conversation. 

Harold


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## alancj (Feb 9, 2008)

@Harold: Well, then I guess it was my misunderstanding, sorry. I wasn't aware that people were considering melting the whole thing down. One might be able to hold it in silicon carbide or graphite, and something similar for the furnace body, basically just do what industry does but on a smaller scale. Of course just because industry can do it economically doesn't mean the (rich technically proficient) amateur can do it economically, since that pesky thing called economics of scale works both ways. 

In defense of my suggestion, the additional energy needed to heat the whole can would be nothing compared to the energy lost from a pile of coals emitting 95% of its energy straight into your backyard. But when the energy is free, or dirt cheap, it doesn't much matter. The same can't be said about electricity, unless you had the balls to try and bypass your electric meter! 

Anyway, If one wanted to build something heated electrically, BCS http://budgetcastingsupply.com/Heating_Elements_Controllers.php has some premade elements. You could always look on ebay for Nichrome or Kanathal wire if you want to wind your own.

If you want to go with propane, then try building a naturally aspirated burner. Search google for the Reil burner or EZ-burner, or buy just buy a T-Rex burner. 

Lastly, for a cheap homemade refractory mix you might go with "Lionels" mix: http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/refractories.html. It's good enough for melting aluminum, so it should handle 1000 degrees easily enough. There's always ceramic fiber blankets and "real" castable refractory available on the net if you want to get fancy. 

-Alan


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## Froggy (Feb 9, 2008)

Harold, thx. , but I was talking about the guys you mentioned, You make youself available, and I really appreciate that...


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## Harold_V (Feb 9, 2008)

Froggy said:


> Harold, thx. , but I was talking about the guys you mentioned, You make youself available, and I really appreciate that...



Contact me on the side and I'll provide the guy's name and phone number. I can only assume he's still involved, for I haven't talked to him in over a year, as I said. 

I hesitate to make his information known publicly without his permission. Hope you understand. 

Harold


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## Froggy (Feb 10, 2008)

Thx, if I do get any good info(that they dont mind sharing), I will pass it on in a future thread, that way the guys are not pestered, I isent you an email, Frog


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## markqf1 (Feb 16, 2008)

On the subject...
I have roasted my material and intend to post pics when I find my usb cable for my camera.
I did not find it so easy to do.
The 1/3 55 gal drum and propane method worked but , only after some trial and error. The burner was not hot enough to do it alone. It took the addition of a brush burner and about two hours as well. 
It contained 26 pounds of material. I think if I had done it a little bit at a time, it would have worked better. I could get the top and the bottom of the crushed material to get red hot but, not the middle.
This stuff dissapates heat very well.
The material was about 3 inches deep and I couldnt heat up the center to red hot with both burners.
It took alot of stirring. 

For you guys that have cleaned them while still in the case... I wouldn't be suprised if some of it in the center, is still not roasted.
Oh well, on to the next step.


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## Anonymous (Feb 22, 2008)

I am very new to this and haven't even done my first batch yet but I think I have some input that might be helpful on the heating in the can topic. The main problem with that is the reason the converter was taken off the vehicle in the first place,(Unless it was off a wrecked or junked vehicle where the converter was still working at the time of scrap) The converter will most likely be clogged up! No air flow to help remove the carbon or to bring heat in. It looks to me like open the can, crush and roast is the way to go. I any one have any advice for me on how to roast my material your input is welcome I'm thinking the flower pot furnace :roll:


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## Buzz (Feb 23, 2008)

I used the flowerpot furnace method as per Megan Rose's instructions.
It works but you can only do small amounts at a time and you still have to stir regularly.
Stay upwind of it too, it smells bad!

Buzz


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## Froggy (Feb 23, 2008)

The 3ft torch from home depot does the job great. I left the substrate in the can and let her rip'..... gets red really quick. I had to ease off, it was getting too hot, I then went to the other side and did the same, didnt use too much propane at all. The can helps keep the heat in....


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## loco (Feb 23, 2008)

Buzz, so are you processing cats following megan rose's info? would be interested to eventually see a comparison on the method she uses to process cats vs. others since she has told me in emails she doesn't say a word about the way she processes or her yield etc without someone paying her or buying her info. which is disturbing because I was courious about the who thing and when I asked her about the book she says she has about the actual processing and the costs she refused to comment. won't talk unless paid, offer to pay and she won't talk. LOL go figure. I just thought the whole hunting down cats, crushing and roasting was a give me. It was the later part of what she says is her method was what I inquired about.


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## Buzz (Feb 24, 2008)

All i've done so far is to mill down to about 400 mesh (ish!) and roast in a plantpot furnace.

I have about 10kg of roasted honeycomb powder.

I'm waiting for the weather to warm a little before having a crack at the method she advises.

Once roasted, she tells me to boil up some AR and throw in the powder to dissolve the PGM's.
You then filter and leave the solution alone for 25 hours.
Apparently, If left alone, The Rhodium precipitates all by itself due to some kind of decay in the chemical bonding. You then drop the palladium and Platinum using the usual suspects.
I did see this method in action last summer, although I didn't see any Rhodium produced and I don't believe that he recovered anywhere near all the the Pd and Pt available.
I know for sure and to be fair, she does say in her booklets, that this method is for small scale recovery only, you need to figure a way to upscale.

Filtering boiling AR is not for the feint hearted!

To be honest, i'm waiting for Froggy to nail this ( or blow himself up in the process!) although i'm going to try the method M.R. has described purely out of curiosity.

Buzz


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## Froggy (Feb 24, 2008)

Oh , thx Buzz! You can help raise my 6 kids after I go..  Oh,, and the wifes not part of the deal.


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## markqf1 (Feb 24, 2008)

What... no wife?
What kinda deal is that?
There is so much info out there that there is no way it can all be true.
Trial and error.
Wasn't it Edison that could tell you a thousand ways to not build a lightbulb?


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## kelly (May 14, 2008)

After crushing, roasting and solubizing, (and getting rid of the nitric if using ar), then precipitate in order: Ag, Pt, Pd, Ir (let solution rest for a minimum of 24 hrs) and Au. Send what ever was not disolved to refiner to get paid for Rh. At least that's what Megan says. Wish I would have found this forum b4 I bought her books. Good info, but pricey.


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## Harold_V (May 14, 2008)

kelly said:


> After crushing, roasting and solubizing, (and getting rid of the nitric if using ar), then precipitate in order: Ag, Pt, Pd, Ir (let solution rest for a minimum of 24 hrs) and Au.


Heh!  

That's a pretty good trick, considering there will be NO Ag in solution. 



> Wish I would have found this forum b4 I bought her books. Good info, but pricey.



If it was good information, it wouldn't tell you to precipitate silver from a solution that contains none. 

If you have much experience in refining, you likely know that one can not have silver in an acid solution with gold----aside from the few peculiar atoms that behave improperly (documented by Sir T.K. Rose). Any silver that may have been present will have been converted to silver chloride. If you mean to filter out silver chloride, then it makes sense. 

The most important thing for you to come to terms with is that had you purchased Hoke's book instead of those you possess, you wouldn't have been given conflicting information. If you don't have Hoke's book, you should. It is very enlightening. 

Harold


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## markqf1 (May 15, 2008)

Factual information is a very valuable thing.
Life is short.
Might as well take advantage of another's experiences,... if they are willing to share.

Mark


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