# Leaching from ore with AP method third batch (pics)



## Sabrinacolada (Nov 17, 2014)

I chose this method of using HCl and H202 to leach bc it seemed easy enough. The internet has too many different processes to follow with the method in terms of precipitating from the solution vs collecting the gold powder from the bottom layer, some say use bleach, washing it with this and that... And they are usually referencing scrap metal. So far I have my ore samples in hcl and h202 in a covered glass bowl. 

It appears that I may have used too much h202 possibly? My solution has dissolved as much gold as it could leaving the rest to settle as powder at the bottom. I used heat but not boiling. 

Can someone give me a short and sweet process to recover what I have? Please see pics. And thanks for the help.


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## butcher (Nov 17, 2014)

I do not see you having much success with trying to leach the chunks of quartz ore, without crushing it, and then mechanical separation of the gold would be easier than trying to recover the gold by leaching with expensive and dangerous chemicals...

Gold being so very much heavier than the quartz, makes mechanical separation of the gold fairly easy.

I would powder the ore and pan it for gold for this small test lot. 
Using rock crusher or hammer mill and sluice or a shaker table for the larger lots of the mine .

You could do a test leach on the crushed tailings of the quartz to see if you have any gold you missed, or if it is even worth spending time and money on trying to leach after recovery from the mechanical separation process, keeping in mind the safe disposal waste, and treatment of the toxic acid solutions used in the process.
If leaching process is found to be economical, or even necessary of the tailings, I would look into using a cheaper leaching solution.

HCl and 30% H2O2 would get costly if using much to leach, and although it works fairly well for finely divided gold powder or flakes does not work well for larger chunks of gold.

The rusty looking red/brown powder you see is most likely an iron oxide compound.


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## Anonymous (Nov 17, 2014)

On a completely separate note though, the OP does have a good taste in Whisky...


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## Sabrinacolada (Nov 17, 2014)

Ugh. I was hoping you would not say that. I'm a 5'3" member of "the weaker sex" lol rock crushing does not seem like something I can do on my own. I live in charlotte near an abandoned quarry. It's a bitch to get in there but I was curious if to see if there was any gold bearing quartz. And I'm pretty sure the are some precious metals in there somewhere. The rocks I brought home are crazy looking. Some had visible veins of gold. I was doing the leach to see if the surface material was gold. My second leach (leaving the rocks over night because I'm not patient) yielded a ton of silver.


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## Sabrinacolada (Nov 17, 2014)

spaceships said:


> On a completely separate note though, the OP does have a good taste in Whisky...


Of course I drink. Lol. You would have to be drunk to babysit a bowl of acid full of rocks. Alchemy and alcohol both start with "a"


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## FrugalRefiner (Nov 17, 2014)

Please tell me you're not doing that in your home. That would not be a good idea.

Dave


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## galenrog (Nov 17, 2014)

How do you know there is gold in your quartz??


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## g_axelsson (Nov 17, 2014)

Sabrinacolada said:


> spaceships said:
> 
> 
> > On a completely separate note though, the OP does have a good taste in Whisky...
> ...


Sorry, but we are not dealing with alchemy on this forum.

From your description it sounds that you have found pyrite, or fools gold. To find veins of visible gold is really rare, normally gold mines contains only a few grams of gold per ton. To extract gold from ore you first need to know what the ore is made up of so leaching or mechanical separation can be tailored after the ore chemistry. The first thing to do when suspecting an ore is to send in a sample for assaying.

Göran


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 17, 2014)

Sabrinacolada said:


> Ugh. I was hoping you would not say that. I'm a 5'3" member of "the weaker sex" lol rock crushing does not seem like something I can do on my own. I live in charlotte near an abandoned quarry. It's a bitch to get in there but I was curious if to see if there was any gold bearing quartz. And I'm pretty sure the are some precious metals in there somewhere. The rocks I brought home are crazy looking. Some had visible veins of gold. I was doing the leach to see if the surface material was gold. My second leach (leaving the rocks over night because I'm not patient) yielded a ton of silver.



If your not a patient person this is going to be a tough field for you to be in.


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## Harold_V (Nov 17, 2014)

Sabrinacolada said:


> My second leach (leaving the rocks over night because I'm not patient) yielded a ton of silver.


It may have yielded a great deal of something, but it is highly doubtful it was silver, as HCl does* not *dissolve silver to any degree. 
The idea that you have found ore that contains visible gold is not realistic. There are mines extracting ore with a content as low as 1/10 ounce/ton, where there is no trace of visible gold. To assume that those who went before you were not wise enough to capitalize on an ore that displays visible gold does not make sense. 

You would be best served to have an assay performed on what you hope is valuable ore. It may save you from one hell of a lot of badly invested time. Most importantly, it will prevent you from generating what is likely to be considered hazardous waste, all for no gain. 

Harold


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## Geo (Nov 18, 2014)

I agree with Harold. You have everyone playing twenty questions without knowing whether there's any values there or not. Heap leaching is old technology but I'm sure they milled the material pretty small.


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## Harold_V (Nov 19, 2014)

Geo said:


> I agree with Harold. You have everyone playing twenty questions without knowing whether there's any values there or not. Heap leaching is old technology but I'm sure they milled the material pretty small.


That's just a small part of the problem I see. 
For what ever reason, many think gold can be extracted from ores with acid. While it's not impossible, it is almost ALWAYS not economical. There are far too many constituents of the rock that interact with the acid, resulting in huge consumption with very little, if any, gain. 

Heap leaching is often conducted on what might be called "pit run". Because the material in question is exceedingly low in content, they tend to take what comes easy and discard the rest, as, aside from mining and piling, expending much more effort can easily overcome the value of the ore. In other words, only select ores lend themselves to heap leaching. However, I am not aware of even ONE example of heap leaching being conducted with acid. It's typically accomplished with very dilute cyanide, which does not react with the ore, aside from removing values. Even copper can be left behind if the solution is dilute enough. 

It is my opinion that even if there was free gold in the sample in question, it would not be extracted by the process in question. That would be all the more true if there was a respectable silver content in the contained gold, as that would isolate the values from the solvent by the formation of silver chloride. 

All in all, this individual really needs to do some reading, to gain an understanding of the processes involved. 

Harold


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## kurtak (Nov 19, 2014)

Harold_V said:


> All in all, this individual really needs to do some reading, to gain an understanding of the processes involved.
> 
> Harold



I will second that motion :!: 

Kurt


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## DarkspARCS (Nov 21, 2014)

I think those were really ice cubes and our friend here filled the container there with the rest of that whiskey and then lost their sandwich halfway through emptying the glass... I hope that the next morning you realized you actually didn't have rocks and acid but instead had a pleasant dream about a nice field trip ...

Because I'd really hate to think that you actually opened a pack of matches and started playing with them without first understanding what they do...

Sister... lol, if you wish to understand the complexities of ores and what's the relationship between the chemically inert contaminants with the electrically reactive values send me a PM and we can discuss this at length - with the goal of giving you some insight on the difference between working with preprocessed PM scrap and the mono atomic matrixes found in pyritical compounds and other refractory minerals.

Harold use to really lay into folks when they first came onto these forums because of his vast experience with the industry and understands the dangers it produces that will kill you dead within seconds if you aren't careful with what your doing. He always asked THE QUESTION...

"Have you even bothered to get a copy of Hoke's book and read any of it"?

allow me to provide you with a copy of one...  View attachment C. M. Hoke Refining Precious Metal Wastes.pdf


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## kurtak (Nov 22, 2014)

she has not been back since the 17th

Kurt


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## g_axelsson (Nov 22, 2014)

She stayed almost an hour, probably didn't like what we told her about her rocks.

Göran


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