# Anyone using SubZero



## edwardbeard (Aug 22, 2010)

I an new to all this, and I’m not sure if I’m having a problem with this or not.
Fallowed all directions and had tech support but now there closed. In sted of a dark mud at the bottom I have a white mixed in with some mud, more white then mud and I’m not sure if I’m done.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

It would help to know what kind of material you are processing and how you have processed them.


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## edwardbeard (Aug 22, 2010)

I used the green chips from motherboards the ones with the black fibor tops, and AR. I have more and want to do them in AP?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

How many did you process in what amount of fluid?

what was the ration of your mix of your fluid?


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## edwardbeard (Aug 22, 2010)

I uesd 1/2 gallon Muriatic to 1 lb subzero


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## edwardbeard (Aug 22, 2010)

Soeey about 30 chips


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

I hope you ran a few pound of material thru this or you will have a lot of nitric to remove from your solution to get your gold to drop.


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## edwardbeard (Aug 22, 2010)

Can I add a lot of water to help with this?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

edwardbeard said:


> Can I add a lot of water to help with this?



Nope. Either add more material to use up the nitric, or get some UREA and neutralize the nitric, or use the _*evaporation *_process as described here on the forum to remove the nitric.

Here is a trick that I have not herd any one mention. You can have a batch of nitric with material in it. Add a little bit of HCL, let digest till the HCL is used up and you can still drop your old out of the nitric. This is for the ones of you that want to get creative. :roll:


Edit: Boil down changed to evaporate.


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Barren, isn't that too much acid for only 30 chips? 
I use 4fl oz/HCL & 1fl oznitric to dissolve 1troy oz of gold.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

philddreamer said:


> Barren, isn't that too much acid for only 30 chips?
> I use 4fl oz/HCL & 1fl oznitric to dissolve 1troy oz of gold.



Yea it is way too much. His best bet is going to take the solution and let it settle and then siphon off the fluid and put a slab of copper in it and let the gold cement out and start over with a smaller amount of solution in the correct amounts.

I will have to admit I have quit using HCL/clorox and have gone to HCL/nitric and have not had to boil down neutralize solution or anything else and have done from .25g to 48g. Done the last 8 rounds this way and I like it a lot better than HCL/clorox and knocked my process time down a day or 2.


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 22, 2010)

> I will have to admit I have quit using HCL/clorox and have gone to HCL/nitric and have not had to boil down neutralize solution or anything else and have done from .25g to 48g. Done the last 8 rounds this way and I like it a lot better than HCL/clorox and knocked my process time down a day or 2.



Glad to hear it! You must have learned how to keep the nitric, in the AR, at a minimum.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> > I will have to admit I have quit using HCL/clorox and have gone to HCL/nitric and have not had to boil down neutralize solution or anything else and have done from .25g to 48g. Done the last 8 rounds this way and I like it a lot better than HCL/clorox and knocked my process time down a day or 2.
> 
> 
> 
> Glad to hear it! You must have learned how to keep the nitric, in the AR, at a minimum.



Yes sir I did. I have run 8 batches that way with no problem at all.

_*Just a little paitence. 8) *_


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## goldsilverpro (Aug 22, 2010)

> Yes sir I did. I have run 8 batches that way with no problem at all.


Ain't it great? Sure makes things faster and easier in the long run.


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

We have top notch experts in this field, all it takes is to follow their instructions & expert advise!

Thank you all! 

Phil


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

goldsilverpro said:


> > Yes sir I did. I have run 8 batches that way with no problem at all.
> 
> 
> Ain't it great? Sure makes things faster and easier in the long run.



It saves a lot of time as long as you have the paitence to let it do it's job.


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## lazersteve (Aug 22, 2010)

The only time I use HCl-Cl now days is for extracting cats and that's going to change in the very near future. I'm getting a dedicated location set up for gas phase :mrgreen: . I will most likely try my hand at stripping gold plated items with gas phase also. It is nice to have HCl-Cl as an option for those that don't have access to nitric.

Modified Poor man's AR is super fast and super cheap. If you control the nitrate additions you will have no problem precipitating the gold.

I still use true AR for all of my second pass refining (Gold and PGMs).

Steve


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

lazersteve said:


> The only time I use HCl-Cl now days is for extracting cats and that's going to change in the very near future. I'm getting a dedicated location set up for gas phase :mrgreen: . I will most likely try my hand at stripping gold plated items with gas phase also. It is nice to have HCl-Cl as an option for those that don't have access to nitric.
> 
> Modified Poor man's AR is super fast and super cheap. If you control the nitrate additions you will have no problem precipitating the gold.
> 
> ...



I also switched to poor mans AR this weekend to speed up the process. I have about 25lbs of high grade CPU's I'm doing in 2 liters of solution. Not all at once in stages.


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## Harold_V (Aug 22, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> or use the _*boil down *_process as described here on the forum to remove the nitric.


It would be a VERY good thing if you'd stop making reference to evaporation as a "boil down". That sends the wrong message to people. Those with experience should be quick to point out that boiling gold chloride solutions in order to evaporate is the source of considerable loss of values. Evaporation should be pursued at a low heat level, with vapors coming off free of any color. 

Harold


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Now that poorman's AR has been brought up, I've had a question for a while. How much HCL/sodioum nitrate per 1oz of gold? 
Steve, I learned from your post, "4fl oz HCL/ 1fl oz nitric for standard AR", but for the poorman's it was stated "per grams of pins". That's where I got lost. I've read thru some posts, but never really found per oz of gold, since I have plenty of nitric I didn't worry; but I have 10# of sodioum nitrate from Action & would like to start using.

Thank you!

Phil


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
> 
> 
> > or use the _*boil down *_process as described here on the forum to remove the nitric.
> ...



I didn't mean to do that. 

You know I haven't been pushing boil down and I have been advocating evaporating. 

I will go correct that. 

Thank you.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

philddreamer said:


> Now that poorman's AR has been brought up, I've had a question for a while. How much HCL/sodioum nitrate per 1oz of gold?
> Steve, I learned from your post, "4fl oz HCL/ 1fl oz nitric for standard AR", but for the poorman's it was stated "per grams of pins". That's where I got lost. I've read thru some posts, but never really found per oz of gold, since I have plenty of nitric I didn't worry; but I have 10# of sodioum nitrate from Action & would like to start using.
> 
> Thank you!
> ...



You can't figure it by the aproximate gold yield because some of your nitric will be used up disolving the pins and other base metals as well.


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Amen, brother Harold! 
If I may add, the use of a watch glass helps tremendously, with not only helping seeing the color of the vapors, but also in condensating them & keeping them & the gold, inside, where they belong.


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Barren, I'm not dissolving pins. Its the gold that I inquarted & processed thru nitric to get rid of bm's & then would like to processes thru P-AR. Can Poorman's AR be used this way or is it solely for pins?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 22, 2010)

philddreamer said:


> Barren, I'm not dissolving pins. Its the gold that I inquarted & processed thru nitric to get rid of bm's & then would like to processes thru P-AR. Can Poorman's AR be used this way or is it solely for pins?



If it were me I would use the regular nitric for your inquirtation and save your poor mans AR for other stuff. I feel there my be problems that will arise from using it this way. 

The silver that you used to inquirt with if you run it thru poor mans will turn to silver chloride and you will have that to deal with.


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Excellent! That's why I tried it the first time a got the sodioum nitrate & things didn't go good, & I stuck with regular nitric. Now I understand. Thank you brother!


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## lazersteve (Aug 22, 2010)

When substituting nitrates for nitric acid in Poorman's AR here are some handy numbers:

1. When used to dissolve gold powders use 4 mL of 31% HCl per gram of gold plus:

1.343 g NaNO3 (sodium nitrate) per gram of gold to be dissolved.
or
1.597 g KNO3 (potassium nitrate) per gram of gold to be dissolved.

2. When used to dissolve copper based scrap 4 mL of 31% HCl per gram of copper plus:

5.35 g NaNO3 per gram of copper to be dissolved.
or
6.36 g KNO3 per gram of copper to be dissolved.

3. When using NaNO3 be sure to include 1.5 mL of water in the reaction per gram of NaNO3 used. When using KNO3 be sure to include 4 mL of water per gram of KNO3 used.

These numbers are the theoretical values. The actual required amount will vary with reaction conditions and reflux of the vapors. With good temperature control (just below boiling) and proper reflux (watch glass or condenser ) the actual required amount of nitrate (or nitric) can be reduced. 

The best mileage from the nitrate can be obtained when it is added in small increments during the course of the reaction. Let each addition fully react (all tiny bubbles cease and red vapor in condenser clears) before adding the next dose. Start with very small doses to avoid boil overs. As the reaction nears completion (all of the target metal is dissolved) add only very small amounts of the nitrate.

Steve


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## philddreamer (Aug 22, 2010)

Excellent Steve! 

Thank you!

Phil


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## Anonymous (Aug 23, 2010)

Harold wrote:


> with vapors coming off free of any color



If you did that,you would never drive off excess nitrates.At some point there will be a discoloration,however small,in the vapor,if there is an excess of nitrates in the solution being evaporated.


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## Harold_V (Aug 23, 2010)

mic said:


> Harold wrote:
> 
> 
> > with vapors coming off free of any color
> ...


I stand corrected, but with a comment. 
Yes, when you see the nitrates coming off, you should see a thin brown cloud. However, having evaporated more than a lion's share of gold chloride in my years in the refinery, I can tell you that that happens towards the end, generally after the introduction of HCl. In spite of what you may read, it's not easy to evaporate the free nitric, and any acceleration, the result of elevated temperature, will, indeed, cost you something in the way of losses. 

Have you ever had to rub (with rubbing compound) the side of a travel trailer to remove gold staining? 

Been there, done that, and learned the lesson. 

Back to the point at hand-----evaporation should not be conducted at a boiling temperature. If you wish to accelerate the process, use an evaporating dish. They present a large surface area, evaporating greater amounts in a given period of time without raising the temperature. 

If you'd like to limit, or even eliminate evaporation, assuming you have used an excess of nitric, add some pure gold and HCl to the lot. Fast and easy. 

Harold


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