# T-6



## EVO-AU (Aug 24, 2009)

To one and all:

Anybody out there have any luck with T-6 from GMW? I would like to hear ( read ) of other experimenters use of this stuff . Appreciate.

Phill


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## markqf1 (Aug 24, 2009)

Are you talking about using them (magetic flux) for the detection of metals or recovering values from the sensors?

Mark


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## EVO-AU (Aug 25, 2009)

Mark:

I have been involved with t-6 for a bunch of years. Various combinations. I was inquiring as whether or not anybody else has used this chemical and in what regard !

There are a couple of people on this forum that have been exposed to this chemical. I know their input. Any others have anything to add ?
Appreciate. Phill


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## rhwhite67 (Mar 18, 2010)

Yes My partner and i bought a lot of resin beads as well as T-6 from Mike and I worked with Mike for quite a while once i learned that he did not have a read solid way to retrieve the metal from the T-6 precipitates and have used this material a lot. At the time I was working with him he could show you all the pretty metal in the world under a scope but he did not legitimately have a way to get the metal out of the T-6 precipitate. I have a 55 gallon drum full of the liquid from dropping a lot of metal out of a concentrated H2) source... 44 cents to the gallon in 2003 and it is still setting out on the slab while i continue to try and find a way to retrieve it from the T-6 precipitate that it is locked into via a sulfied/carbon bond. What i do know is that normal sulfied ore assaying technics when used on this stuff simply eats your silver oxide or lead and you end up with a pile of goop. Chemical processes have also proven unsuccessful in recovering the metal from this material once it is dried. If anyone has any suggestions i am open to your thoughts on how to get the metal out as i would love to recover this loss as well as part of the funds which we spent with Mike which in the end, ended up be wasted money and effort as he was basicly full of it. Although he was very good at gathering information from other sources and selling it to people as his "own discoveries" and some of what he has for sale on the sight is worthwhile. A lot of it was just simple horse manure.

Again if someone knows how to process the precipitates to extract the metal from them, I would be very grateful. 

P.S. If anyone has a source of H2O with dissolve precious metals in it, after leaving Mike behind and doing a lot of research as well as working on this situation with several really good people who really did know what they were talking about, and of course regretably after our funding ran out I now know exactly how to build a system that will extract the dissolved precious metals from water, and would be very happy to discuss this with you. I know the system works because it has been bench tested and works on a known source of water with precious metals in it. Just wish i had the funds we wasted with Mike back as it would be more than enough to build the unit. 

P.P.S. fast and dirty method to test H2) for dissolved precious metal:

***Using a kitchen strainer lined with a coffee filter filter 5 gallons of your source water into a 5 gallon bucket. Add 1/4 cup clorox bleach and 1/4 cup plain household amonia and stir vigorously with a log plastic spoon. The foam forming on the to is the precious metals and they will slowly precipitate out and fall to the bottom of the bucket. Carefully pour off the water and filter the powder through a coffee filter. You can then view it under a jewelers loupe or microscope and you will actually see the pieces as small nugget and flake shapes of each metal. this powder can be weighed by a very good scale and will tell you how much metal you can recover per gallon of water. A good estimate is that if the pile in the bottom of the bucket is the size of a dime it is commercially recoveralble and profitable to do so.  **_Moderator's note: this is a very dangerous recommendation, one which has no basis in fact and is a needless risk to personal health and safety. Upon conferring with other moderators, this section of the post may be deleted._

Sincerely
Ron White


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## butcher (Mar 18, 2010)

Quote "T-6 precipitate that it is locked into via a sulfied/carbon bond. What i do know is that normal sulfied ore assaying technics when used on this stuff simply eats your silver oxide or lead and you end up with a pile of goop. "

have you tried heating to drive off sulfides, then roast red hot ?
I would try without copper first, and then with copper powder as a collector in the roast stage, to see what I got, may be able to extract the metals from this without a melt?
or add an Iron nail to the melt see what I got then?
can you give us more information as to what the product from t=6 is?


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## rhwhite67 (Mar 18, 2010)

Thanks for the reply Butcher. No i have not tried that one. (have you tried adding a little copper powder, heating to drive off sulfides, then roast red hot ?) I will do so and see what happens. Have tried just about every other sulphide ore option. Still looking. If I can crack this i will share it with the forum as the T-6 material could have a lot of uses if the metal can ultimately be extracted.
P.S. Sorry so grouchy towards Mike about it all but we wasted a lot of time, money and effort on this for now real results.
Thanks again
Ron


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## Oz (Mar 18, 2010)

I would try just the roast at a red heat first. I have not seen a sulfur compound that can not be broken that way, yet.


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## shadybear (Mar 18, 2010)

Here is what the T=6 Manual says:

Firing Precips directly produces some losses in evaporation, both in precips and in silver.
Save all slag glass, crush and pan out the silver later. Improved firings can be had by Electrowinning the precips before smelting, converting all metal salts into metal powder first( covered elsewhere in another report)

Also in a lower box on the same page:

Average firings direct as shown result in roughly 1/4th of the beginning
weight(EG: 1lb. precips=4 ounces metal) Simple Flux mix is discussed next chapter

The instructions say to smelt.
I am betting you tried that though


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## Irons (Mar 18, 2010)

rhwhite67 said:


> Yes My partner and i bought a lot of resin beads as well as T-6 from Mike and I worked with Mike for quite a while once i learned that he did not have a read solid way to retrieve the metal from the T-6 precipitates and have used this material a lot. At the time I was working with him he could show you all the pretty metal in the world under a scope but he did not legitimately have a way to get the metal out of the T-6 precipitate. I have a 55 gallon drum full of the liquid from dropping a lot of metal out of a concentrated H2) source... 44 cents to the gallon in 2003 and it is still setting out on the slab while i continue to try and find a way to retrieve it from the T-6 precipitate that it is locked into via a sulfied/carbon bond. What i do know is that normal sulfied ore assaying technics when used on this stuff simply eats your silver oxide or lead and you end up with a pile of goop. Chemical processes have also proven unsuccessful in recovering the metal from this material once it is dried. If anyone has any suggestions i am open to your thoughts on how to get the metal out as i would love to recover this loss as well as part of the funds which we spent with Mike which in the end, ended up be wasted money and effort as he was basicly full of it. Although he was very good at gathering information from other sources and selling it to people as his "own discoveries" and some of what he has for sale on the sight is worthwhile. A lot of it was just simple horse manure.
> 
> Again if someone knows how to process the precipitates to extract the metal from them, I would be very grateful.
> 
> ...




Bleach with ammonia can form Hydrazine, which is a reducing agent, but it can also form explosive Chloramines. If I want to play Russian Roulette, I'll use a gun, thank you.

No matter what is formed, it will be toxic.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Mar 18, 2010)

Irons said:


> rhwhite67 said:
> 
> 
> > Yes My partner and i bought a lot of resin beads as well as T-6 from Mike and I worked with Mike for quite a while once i learned that he did not have a read solid way to retrieve the metal from the T-6 precipitates and have used this material a lot. At the time I was working with him he could show you all the pretty metal in the world under a scope but he did not legitimately have a way to get the metal out of the T-6 precipitate. I have a 55 gallon drum full of the liquid from dropping a lot of metal out of a concentrated H2) source... 44 cents to the gallon in 2003 and it is still setting out on the slab while i continue to try and find a way to retrieve it from the T-6 precipitate that it is locked into via a sulfied/carbon bond. What i do know is that normal sulfied ore assaying technics when used on this stuff simply eats your silver oxide or lead and you end up with a pile of goop. Chemical processes have also proven unsuccessful in recovering the metal from this material once it is dried. If anyone has any suggestions i am open to your thoughts on how to get the metal out as i would love to recover this loss as well as part of the funds which we spent with Mike which in the end, ended up be wasted money and effort as he was basicly full of it. Although he was very good at gathering information from other sources and selling it to people as his "own discoveries" and some of what he has for sale on the sight is worthwhile. A lot of it was just simple horse manure.
> ...



It can be very shock sensative.


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## rhwhite67 (Mar 18, 2010)

Thanks Irons for the information. I wondered about that, but it does work. However a better way is just to add Amonia Chloride which will achieve the same results.
Ron


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## rhwhite67 (Mar 18, 2010)

Thanks for the input Shadybear. 

Here is what the T=6 Manual says:

Firing Precips directly produces some losses in evaporation, both in precips and in silver.
Save all slag glass, crush and pan out the silver later. Improved firings can be had by Electrowinning the precips before smelting, converting all metal salts into metal powder first( covered elsewhere in another report)

Also in a lower box on the same page:

Average firings direct as shown result in roughly 1/4th of the beginning
weight(EG: 1lb. precips=4 ounces metal) Simple Flux mix is discussed next chapter

The instructions say to smelt.
I am betting you tried that though

Yes I am aware of what his manual says to do. I helped him write a lot of that information on how to do the smelting and I know from trial and error/personal experience that a lot of what he was telling people to do at that time was flat out B.S.. I never bothered to get a copy of his T-6 manual, mostly because of the bad taste dealing with him left in my mouth and because i sat there and watched him on several occasions flat out lie to people over the phone which is what ultimately ended my willingness to do any further "research with him. Secondly, the metal in the precipitates is not in a salt form and as they are a heavy precipitate are not subject to electro-winning unless you convert them back to a fluid form. 

To smelt them you have to filter them and then dry them down add borix acid and sodium hyroxide in equal amounts along with your silver oxide as the collector mixing them together with the precipitate add 2-3 10 penny nails to counteract the sulfides. Then smelt at 2100 degrees F. However this simply caused the silver to go into the precipitates and glass forming a worthless goop. 

Mikes other method that he was telling everyone for a while was to boil the precipitate in a sodium hydroxide solution for 24 hours and the smelt it. Both of these failed to work at releasing the metal. I will let everyone here know the results of mixing in the copper powder and then firing. I have a friend with a tank truck load of these precipitates. 

My honest suggestion is for anyone wanting to do real refining, get hokes book and read and digest this forum and listen to guys like Steve and them who are already successful and learn to do it right from them. They have a lot of outstanding knowledge and information that actually works in the real world not someones fantasy.

Sincerely
Ron


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## Irons (Mar 19, 2010)

T-6 is TR-6, originally formulated as a precipitant for heavy metals in waste water treatment. It does a good job of sequestering heavy metals as everyone who tried recovering them has found out.
All is not lost. Use it for what it was intended.

http://waterspecialists.biz/html/precipitants.html

The source:
WST precipitants are expressly formulated to precipitate metal ions from a wide variety of industrial process wastewaters and groundwaters. Such wastewaters frequently contain chelants and other complexing agents that surround the metal ions and prevent the chemical reaction that converts the ions to insoluble particles. WST precipitants chemically "break" such chelating/complexing rings surrounding metal ions thereby subjecting them to precipitating reactions. To learn more about chemical precipitation, click on about chemical precipitation.

WST precipitants, briefly described below, include sulfide, carbamate and polythiocarbonate based products and proprietary blends thereof. Additives are often blended with the basic precipitants to achieve maximum precipitating efficiency and to assist in the solids/liquid separation operations. 

To determine which precipitant best fits your needs, click to contact us and give us the application details so that we can respond with our recommendations. The subtle differences between formulations can often provide the answer for those hard-to-solve applications,. Let us help you.
( Top )
POLYTHIOCARBONATE BASED PRECIPITANTS: the following precipitants are formulated with our patented Thio-Red as the precipitating chemistry:

Thio-Red: Basic polythiocarbonate organic compound that forms organo-metallic precipitates.
TR-5: Blend with allied compounds and coagulant for mixed metals applications.
TR-6: Blend with inorganic compounds and multiple coagulants for mixed metals
applications.
TR-10: Blend with DTC
TR-25: A dilute blend of TR-50.
TR-36: A dilute blend of TR-6


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## rhwhite67 (Mar 19, 2010)

Thank you Irons.

I appreciate that info. I found them several years ago but my computer crashed and i never bothered to look them up again.

Sincerely
Ron


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## Irons (Mar 19, 2010)

rhwhite67 said:


> Thank you Irons.
> 
> I appreciate that info. I found them several years ago but my computer crashed and i never bothered to look them up again.
> 
> ...



You're very welcome.

Live and learn. It's very frustrating to spin your wheels. Life is short .


My pain is your gain.


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## markqf1 (Mar 19, 2010)

Great post Irons!

Mark


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## Irons (Mar 19, 2010)

markqf1 said:


> Great post Irons!
> 
> Mark



Hey Mark, long time no see. :mrgreen:


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## johnon (Apr 2, 2010)

try dissolving precips in 0.8M sodium thiosulfate sol (~1#/gal); add copper (powder, wire, penny pre1982) and ammonia to pH 9-10; drop w/CO2; filter, wash & destroy residual thiosulfate w/white vinegar. Flux cons w/lots of borax and a little NaNO3 and silica. I can't guarantee this will work but i've played w/T-6 before and i think it's pretty much thioglycolic acid aq. soln.


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## Palladium (Apr 2, 2010)

Where are you at on your problem Ron ?


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## rhwhite67 (May 5, 2010)

Thanks for everyones suggestions. Sorry, I got sidtracked by another project. Ashing resin beads for a % of the recovery. I will let everyone know the results on the T-6 as soon as possible. 
Ron


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## Lou (May 6, 2010)

I'm so glad I just saw this thread.

Because it is so wrong, and in so many ways! I'm close to locking it, except for a few bits of possibly useful information.
I'm sick of seeing T-6 recommended in refining. It has no place.


"Using a kitchen strainer lined with a coffee filter filter 5 gallons of your source water into a 5 gallon bucket. Add 1/4 cup clorox bleach and 1/4 cup plain household amonia and stir vigorously with a log plastic spoon. The foam forming on the to is the precious metals and they will slowly precipitate out and fall to the bottom of the bucket. Carefully pour off the water and filter the powder through a coffee filter. You can then view it under a jewelers loupe or microscope and you will actually see the pieces as small nugget and flake shapes of each metal. this powder can be weighed by a very good scale and will tell you how much metal you can recover per gallon of water. A good estimate is that if the pile in the bottom of the bucket is the size of a dime it is commercially recoveralble and profitable to do so. "
*
LET NO ONE ACTUALLY DO THIS!!! *This is a very dangerous procedure which does not accomplish anything close to what is claimed. For lack of a better word, it is insane. No one should mix ammonia with bleach in any circumstances.


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## rhwhite67 (May 7, 2010)

Lou

Thank You for your input. The desire to learn how to get the precious metal out of this stuff is a very real desire for several people as i have mentioned in my post. 

The issue with Chlorine and Amonia, I deffer to your knowledge and as stated above in an answer to Irons reply, I prefer to do the water test with amonia chloride which accomplishes the same result. 

As for T-6 you are absolutely right and I agree with you whole heartedly, there is no place for it in refining. I our case it was used to extract the precious metals from a large volume of leach solution based on bad information we received from the person who was selling it as a terrific precipitant for precious metals. It does precipitate the metal but then you cannot get the metal back out of it. 

As i stated above. as soon as i have a chance to try the suggested method from Johnon or find a way to extract the metals from this goop I will post the information to try and help those who have had the miss-fortune of running across this stuff.

Thank You for your diligence and the blessing of your input for everyone here.
Ron


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## butcher (May 7, 2010)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A795611
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/mixing-bleach-and-ammonia.html


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## Gratilla (Jun 23, 2010)

I wonder if solvent extraction (SX) with DiButyl Carbitol (DBC) might be the way to go.

My thinking: T-6 is a very "broad spectrum" leach/precipitant, ie it can be used as both/either leach/precipitant; it leaches and precipitates pretty much ALL metals. DBC is selective for Au and ignores most of the other metals - Ag and Hg I believe are exceptions. The T-6 docs, themselves, suggest a second (more specific) leach to get at the PMs from the precipitate.

So, would either of the following work:

a) Releach the T-6 precipitate with say AR or SSN, followed by SX with DBC.
b) Direct DBC SX from an acid-side T-6 leach of your cons (ie before precipitation).


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## BamBamNielsen (Jan 21, 2020)

Phill,

I am currently using T6 but as a leach NOT a precipitating reagent. I leach at acidic PH, swing the PH and everything falls out of solution as organo-sulfides. I have had ZERO difficulty using this and smelting afterwards. Maybe I can help? I don't understand your problem but then again I am having a hard time following this whole thread. I come at this from a pyrometallurgical position meaning that there are a lot of details I would need from you in order to know how to help:

What are you using the T6 for?
What exactly is the difficulty?
What are your EXACT smelting conditions? (atmosphere, crucible type, temperature, residence time, collector metal etc)
What are your EXACT smelting reagents?
Reagents to precips ratio?
Do you have an assay of your precips?

The devil is ALWAYS in the details.


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## g_axelsson (Jan 22, 2020)

Welcome to the forum BamBamNielsen!

I don't think you will get an answer, last time Phill visited the forum is eight years ago. It's ten years since the thread were active last time.

But it's always good to get more information about procedures, even in old threads, because it adds to the amount of knowledge stored in this forum.  

Göran


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