# GOLD DESORPTION FROM ACTIVATED CARBON



## Destroyer777 (May 18, 2010)

Hello everybody,
Does anybody have idea how to recover gold from activated carbon under home conditions????

Thanks in advance


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## Lino1406 (May 18, 2010)

always stink. But you can use a bucket with 
conforming cover, and a beaker inside +
small amount


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## Lou (May 18, 2010)

Burn it.


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## WIZZARD (May 19, 2010)

Some patents describe placing in a tube with steam. 

You loaded some AC from a solution containing precious metals and other elements? If the solution you place the AC in has a lot of PM's and you use to much AC you will get the NM's first then the junk. CIP or CIC. Carbon in pulp or Carbon in Column. If CIC the theory is the first column will load first and as the solution is spent the last column will have the least. Knowing your values is paramount, you need to know how much goodies are in solution and what point the carbon stops loading values. Knowing this end point will tell how many columns to have and what volume of AC to solution ratio you need. AC can be use several time before it the gives up the ghost, coconut shell AC of course. 

To check your AC I use a stainless steel spoon 4 for $1.00, cheap. Place some loaded AC, 5 sunflower seeds volume in the spoon. Add DH2O, bring to boil with propane torch, stop, pick out AC with tweezers, set the AC in new spoon to be repeated, boil down the solution in the first spoon, and see what's cooking. Be sure to use a hood, because if there is any nasty stuff in the solution the AC might pick it up and you don't want to breath the vapor. You will need a good microscope to see the residue. The residue can be metal, or junk, even if it's metal you still don't know what it is. This quickly test is only to see if you have some residue worth going for in the main AC gang. You will flash off values to be sure, maybe most of them using this spoon test, it only a residue quick metal test. Yes some of the spoon's elements will surly transfer too, but you can tell if the residue just thin minor amount or if your AC is loaded. Add a small pinch of oxalic powered when you add the water to make a Au/oxalic compound to keep Au from flashing, or even some ammonium chloride to see if PGM/salts are formed, if so, your ignition must be very slow to prevent PGM's from flashing off. You don't want the fumes to go into anything but a scrubber. I'm sure with experience you can tell if you have gold residue, or Pt sponge or both, however full chemical processing to a button is best test of all. By the way if you use ammonium chloride first you may see some brown smoke leaving the spoon at end of the ignition it might be AuCl blowing off. If this starts stop cool and see if a velvet brown residue is forming on top of Pt looking metal, silver,gray, shinny to dull. Once converted to metal residue you will still need to place this through the gold/Pm process. 

You can use a number of solutions to elude the AC mostly the same stuff you use to place NM in solution and part according, however eluding is recommended when you wish to reuse the AC a few times, and values will always remain in the AC. In the end, you will end up burning them anyway just like Lou said. 

Burning is a controlled process and all the fumes must be collected in a vapor trap, and/or water scrubber. Carbon will ash fly the goodies if not done right. Before burning ask Lou for the best way. 

WIZZARD


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## captain1 (May 23, 2010)

I use activated carbon to capture free gold and platinum in streams. Works very well for me. I use AR to recover the metal from the carbon. Seems to do a good job if you don't dilute your AR solution to much. And give it about 24 hrs to strip the carbons. Then rinse the carbons well with water when finished.


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## makmur mulia (Jun 26, 2010)

Captain1, would you please describe in a bit detail on how to use AR to recover gold values from loaded AC? Many thanks.


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## mlgdave (Mar 13, 2013)

Has anyone on the forum any experience with processing large quantities of spent carbon? I have (maybe) an opportunity to acquire large quantities of spent carbon from a commercial mine for a % of the yield. We are talking 3 semi loads of bulk bags at a time. Of course I will get some small core samples of the bulk bags and do an assay to see if its even worthwhile but apparently the Chinese company that was taking the stuff is no longer doing that and they have asked me to look into it. I will be going up to the mine next week on another mater and get ahold of some samples

mlgdave


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## mlgdave (Mar 13, 2013)

ok, Lou, you say burn it. On a large scale would you do the same? I have some connections for a cool incinerator process that actually burns waste wood in a vaccum, harvests the hydrogen, and then produces carbon as a by product, it could be modified to reburn the carbon to ash, vaccum off the gases and scrub them, what would we then do with the burnt carbon?

Interesting that I just remembered the gassier project i had worked on a few years ago!

mlgdave


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## FPZA (Jul 14, 2013)

Destroyer777 said:


> Hello everybody,
> Does anybody have idea how to recover gold from activated carbon under home conditions????
> 
> Thanks in advance



for the small scale you can burn it then use aqua regia, also you can use aqua regia leaching on the carbon in 80 degree in Celsius and extract the gold and silver.
for the large scale you should use AARL or Zadra Elution process.


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## rakisso (Feb 10, 2014)

im just new here to this forum, just registered a while ago. i have a year experience in that process. as of now, maybe you now knew
how to process this, but anyway if you would like some ideas about it,i can give you some points


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## Jaynkali (Dec 14, 2016)

hi,need help please, i have more than 30 tonnes of eluted activated carbon with 50ppm of Gold and 90 ppm of copper, i dont want to use Elution machine because its more expensive, am looking foward using Burning Activated carbon to extract gold,help me on how to prepare the burning stove and chemicals used during the process
my email is [email protected]
facebook: Jay Nkali
hope to here from you soon
thanks.﻿


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## fransadan (Jun 1, 2022)

rakisso said:


> im just new here to this forum, just registered a while ago. i have a year experience in that process. as of now, maybe you now knew
> how to process this, but anyway if you would like some ideas about it,i can give you some points


how did you do it? Is it successful?


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## FrugalRefiner (Jun 1, 2022)

rakisso hasn't been here since 2014. If you move your cursor over a member's name or avatar, a box will pop up that shows the last time a member visited.

Dave


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