# hcl peroxide baking soda and hcl-sodium hypochlorite and cop



## fpower60 (Mar 8, 2016)

Hi every one on this forum. Ok so i made a mess up im very nnot a chemist im technologist in industrial electronics and im from quebec, Canada. so im sorry for my english to... And thanks for all the post they really helpfull i started read hookes book.

So ill explaine my fist experience and i would like to have some comment and explanation you will see a dummy try to but it will help me and maybe some other person... 

Ok then... I started up with hydrochloric 34% and hydrogen peroxide 3%, Everithing was good i seen the gold foils go out from the electronic scrap then i burned it whit propane torch to remove some plastics filtered it in water to remove the plastic as i can. The result was gold foils whit a little bit of some other scrap.

After i used bleach and hcl acis to melt the foils everythings was good and yes i have my protective gear i just removed my mask for 1 breath and i wasent able to breath.... So after de gold metl in the chemical solution it was a green emerlad so as a dummy i put baking soda and the result was brown powder i tryed to melt it whit oxy acetylene torch and it burn everythings thecrucible to but i was seeing some gold in the crucible... May be. I dont have pic of the melted solution but oxy acetilene was a bad idea...

To return to the solution i put the baking soda that i just keep the brown powder the resulting liquid was more clear green yellow emerlad color that i putted in a copper bar after 5 minutes the solution turned a dark black that when i puted that to the sun and try to look the solution... My eye back the bottle plastic water bottle and the bottle to the sun and it was really dark i tryed to melt the product but i did the same mistake i tried agan to use the oxy acetylene torch but whit less heat and far awway i was able to see little beans of yellow gold but they finished melted like gold plated steel and eveporated it was aproximatively 0.8g of pure gold on the steel i used for that one...
So thanks for reading and every constructive comment are really apreciate thank you!!!!


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## fpower60 (Mar 8, 2016)

Sorry i made a mistake on the poste about the pucture there is the foils after burned and filtered


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## butcher (Mar 8, 2016)

fpower60,
I have to admit I am having a hard time understanding what you wrote, or your question, especially when you say things like melting gold in acid?
Language barrier aside, I think you would do well to spend more time studying, and a little less time trying to do it before you have a better understanding, then I would just bet you will see more gold beads in your melting dish.


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## Grelko (Mar 9, 2016)

butcher said:


> fpower60,
> I have to admit I am having a hard time understanding what you wrote, or your question, especially when you say things like melting gold in acid?



After dealing with the language barrier in online games for over 20 years, most of this is plain English to me. 



fpower60 said:


> Hi every one on this forum. Ok, so I made a mess up, I'm not really a chemist, I'm a technologist in industrial electronics and I'm from Quebec, Canada, so I'm sorry for my english too. Thanks for all of the posts they are really helpful. I started reading Hoke's book.
> 
> So I'll explain my first experience and I would like to have some comments and explanations. You will see my mistake, but it will help me and maybe some other person.
> 
> ...




Edit - I agree with butcher. You should read and study more, before you try this again, so that you don't accidently make another mistake. Alot of the chemicals we use for this are very dangerous.


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## fpower60 (Mar 9, 2016)

Yes a steel crucible.


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## Grelko (Mar 9, 2016)

fpower60 said:


> Yes a steel crucible.



If you melted part of the steel crucible with the Oxy-Acetylene torch, your gold will look like steel, because they mixed together.


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## fpower60 (Mar 10, 2016)

So it wasent look like steel but gold plated i seen some little beans melting and the steel wasent.... So i have a question if i put copper bar in a solution the only metals will drops are silver mercury gold platinum (metals lowers from the table) thats true? So if i put my copper in aquous solution and i have cement color powder its because its silver right? And if i have a black powder in it is gold? So i now my english is not good when i write but i understand everything i reading...


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## fpower60 (Mar 10, 2016)

I know theory is good but practice is a lot more better. as a technologist in electronics i know that.... Its why i still asking because its not in the book or buy reading all this forum i will do a good things but whit practice... Read and practice is 50-50 for me i think.


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## Grelko (Mar 11, 2016)

fpower60 said:


> So it wasent look like steel but gold plated i seen some little beans melting and the steel wasent.... So i have a question if i put copper bar in a solution the only metals will drops are silver mercury gold platinum (metals lowers from the table) thats true? So if i put my copper in aquous solution and i have cement color powder its because its silver right? And if i have a black powder in it is gold? So i now my english is not good when i write but i understand everything i reading...



What material did you use? Circuit board, jewelry? 

When you place a copper bar into the solution, it will make other metals drop, if they are below it in the "metal reactivity chart". (silver, gold, platinum and others)

The cement "grey" color powder, is most likely copper powder. Gold powder will be brown or black.



fpower60 said:


> I know theory is good but practice is a lot more better. as a technologist in electronics i know that.... Its why i still asking because its not in the book or buy reading all this forum i will do a good things but whit practice... Read and practice is 50-50 for me i think.



First, read and understand the proper way to do these experiments, then practice second. These chemicals can be very dangerous.


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 11, 2016)

Grelko said:


> fpower60 said:
> 
> 
> > So if i put my copper in aquous solution and i have cement color powder its because its silver right? And if i have a black powder in it is gold? So i now my english is not good when i write but i understand everything i reading...
> ...


fpower, when many metals are cemented, they will appear grey/silver in color. In your case, it's not likely to be silver since you're using HCl and peroxide and HCl and bleach, and silver isn't very soluble in chloride solutions. If you dissolve silver in nitric acid and add a copper bar, the silver cement would be silver/grey in color.

Grelko, are you perhaps thinking of copper chloride? Cemented copper, created by adding steel to a solution containing copper, should look like, well, copper.

Dave


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## Grelko (Mar 11, 2016)

fpower60 said:


> So i have a question if i put copper bar in a solution the only metals will drops are silver mercury gold platinum (metals lowers from the table) thats true? So if i put my copper in aquous solution and i have cement color powder its because its silver right? And if i have a black powder in it is gold?


This is the part that I was talking about.



FrugalRefiner said:


> Grelko, are you perhaps thinking of copper chloride? Cemented copper, created by adding steel to a solution containing copper, should look like, well, copper.
> 
> Dave



Yes, I was. That's why I wondered about the specific material he was using. He said it was "electronic scrap", so I'm guessing that it would have been from boards or pins, which contain alot of copper. The HCl and peroxide he was using to get the foils would produce copper chloride. Then after adding a copper bar, it would eventually saturate the solution, dropping the rest of the less reactive metals (gold, etc.) as black powder, plus some (copper I chloride) as "grey " powder.

At first, I thought that he melted (liquified) the steel crucible and powder together with the torch, instead of dissolving (melting) a piece of steel into solution, which would drop the copper as well, because he was talking about melting the gold beads. I could be mistaken though, but it actually sounds like he has gold flakes and powder, mixed with (copper I chloride) powder.

Thank you for helping me with this. I'm still learning also.


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## 4metals (Mar 11, 2016)

There is one thing I have learned from using the cementing process for the last 40 years. You can never judge a cemented metal by its color! 

Things like particle size and trace contamination from dirty solutions just make it hard to judge. After the cemented metals dropped are cleaned up and precipitated after refining and are sitting on the bottom of the beaker, then color can tell you something, not before. 

Another thing I have learned is I am never right looking at a precipitate sitting at the bottom of a beaker and trying to guess how much is there. I always dry or melt it and use a balance. The scale never lies!


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## rioux (Mar 18, 2016)

I'm sorry about that i had to creat new accout my phone broke and i did not have answere for my password recovery... it's fpower60.

So if you look at the picture you will see the brown powder. I used some gold plated board and old DIPP chip. i made 3 baths;

1: HCl - Hydrogene peroxide then i isolate the golds foils and some other little quantities of other scrap.

2: same HCl-Hydrogene peroxide to remove the remaining cooper, tin and others not precious metals...

3: HCl-sodium hypochlorite (clorox) for dissolve the gold.

i dropped the gold( and the other precious metal whit cooper ) the yellow liquid turned black really fast.

then i take that powder and tried to melt it whit oxy-acetylene torch but i did not make any wash i think it was my mistake maybe there was remaining AuCl and it just evaporated when i tried to melt it with the oxy-acetylene?

And thanks for all the information its really appreciate. I know it can be very dangerous i already working in factory as electronics technologist and I'm use to whit chemical vapor I'm just not a chemist but i learning everyday...


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## rioux (Mar 18, 2016)

Copper powder dosent look like white-green more than gray?


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 18, 2016)

rioux said:


> Copper powder dosent look like white-green more than gray?


Copper that has been cemented is metallic copper, and it will have the reddish color of copper, like copper wire or pipe. If allowed to dry and exposed to the air, some of will begin to oxidize and turn dark like an old penny or take on a green patina associated with aged copper. Other copper compounds (salts) will have various colors. Copper (I) chloride is a whitish/greyish color, copper (II) chloride is greenish, copper sulfate is blue. Many metals act in similar ways, taking on different colors depending on the type of salt produced.

Hope that helps.

Dave


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## rioux (Mar 18, 2016)

yes its helping a lot i seen this "white" powder when i put a steel bar in my green remaining solution. (its new for me and my chemistry lesson are far away :mrgreen: )

So i started a new "batch" and i understand better the metals reactivity series than the working process for sodium methabisulfite... so if i use to drop gold (and platinum) a canadaian fine 5 dollards silver coin (9999) i will drop only gold and platinum "if there is" and the weight of my 5$ coin will lost the same amount of atom of dropped gold? if i make calculation about my molar weight lost from my fine silver coin i will know how many gold i have is it true? then i can recover my silver whit copper bar like that i will lost nothing but my silver will be less fine because maybe there will some trace of mercury and tungsten, right?

So about mercury that is unwanted metal can i see if there is in the solution, is there mercury in electronics ( i know some old relay and thermostat have that metal ) but about chip or SMD board is there mercury in ( i know there is certainely some little trace and will evaporate when melting but what amout about % of electronics weight )?


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## geedigity (Mar 18, 2016)

you may want to read this somewhere in the forum, but I am not too sure about the silver dropping gold or platinum. Although the activity series would suggest that, I thought that it won't or at least not well. If I am wrong, I am sure someone will set me straight on that.


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## UncleBenBen (Mar 18, 2016)

rioux said:


> if i use to drop gold (and platinum) a canadaian fine 5 dollards silver coin (9999) i will drop only gold and platinum



In theory yes. In practice no. The silver will be passivated by the acid in this case.

I think you would have a better experience and much better results if you would study enough to know the possible outcomes of these processes and reactions before you start them. Just guessing on the next step then asking how to fix it probably won't get you very far.


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## rioux (Mar 20, 2016)

Yes true, i need more learning about this process... So im at page 110 in hook's book and its plain of interesting information. And i have a question about it... They not use SMB to drop gold.. The question is: why? When the book was wrote they wasent use this chemical? Is it the better way to drop gold?

Thanks


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## UncleBenBen (Mar 20, 2016)

Good deal. Glad to see you are reading Hoke. Pay attention to her acquaintance experiments. Do try them. Do them until you understand the reactions they teach. They are a great way of learning hands on how metals behave in solution, they are fun too!

Her choice of precipitant is essentially just that. Choice. Any precipitant can have its advantages depending on circumstances and what all may be in solution with the gold. But it just comes down to personal choice and cost. And Miss Hoke apperantly preferred ferrous sulfate, at least at the time she wrote the book.


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## rickbb (Mar 21, 2016)

Remember that Hoke wrote her book in the 1940's. All the basic information is still very relevant, but a few things have progressed.

Some people dissolve and drop their gold twice, once with ferrous sulfate and the second time with SMB, (or vise a versa). Doing this can yield 3 or 4 9's purity.


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## Harold_V (Mar 23, 2016)

fpower60 said:


> I know theory is good but practice is a lot more better.


That's true ONLY If the practice is good practice, not bad practice. 

I haven't tried to make sense of this thread, but one thing jumped out at me immediately---the talk of a steel crucible. It has NO PLACE in the refining of gold and silver. Until you lose that idea, you're not going to get anywhere. And, that you claim to be reading Hoke sounds more to me like it's a claim, not a reality. If you cheat yourself in gaining the basics, you're going to struggle endlessly. Read Hoke's book, and then read it again. Read it until it makes sense to you. Do that before you jump in unknown water. 



> as a technologist in electronics i know that.... Its why i still asking because its not in the book or buy reading all this forum i will do a good things but whit practice... Read and practice is 50-50 for me i think.


For you, and most people---but practicing something that makes no sense isn't going to benefit you in the same way it would if you practiced things that are constructive. The best advice I could offer you is to start with Hoke's book. Read it until it makes sense, then take it to your lab and perform the experiments she provides, so you become familiar with the expected reactions, including testing. Only after doing so should you even think of starting to refine, as, until you've reached that point, it's more like you've scheduled a recital when you don't have a clue about how to play the instrument of your choosing.

Harold


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## rioux (Mar 24, 2016)

So i started by read a wikihow gold refining i made some (alot) of mistake by only using that is not simple as wkikihow show it... So thank for the advise but i already understood that.

I have some question about stannous chloride. I ordered 4 bar of 1 grain each.

I think about put one of these bars in 15ml of HCl and add sodium hypochlorite to melt it.

My question is; is it will be enough concentrate to have my result black whit 2g of Sn and 30ml HCl as testing and gaging solution?

Thank for your answere!


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## jason_recliner (Mar 25, 2016)

What's the sodium hypochlorite for? Rhetorical question. Don't add it.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=how%2Bto%2Bmake+stannous+chloride


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## rioux (Mar 25, 2016)

This is not for stannous chloride but for smelt 1 grain bar gold to make a teste solution... Ouffff i think i write really bad in english....


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## g_axelsson (Mar 25, 2016)

* 1 grain is 0.067 gram...
* Smelting is the art of turning ore or other material into metal by high temperature chemistry in a furnace.
* Melting is heating a metal (or other object) until it turns from solid to a liquid state.
* Dissolving is when you are using for example acids on gold to turn in in a salt dissolved in water.

I understand that your first language isn't English. I recommend that you add your general location in the "Location" field so it shows up with your posts. That way people usually gets into a more understandable and forgiving mode.
Proper language is quite important on this forum since we are dealing with dangerous chemicals and a mistake could get ugly fast. If you are unsure on the spelling then write it in both English and French and I'm sure some helpful member will correct your English.

Göran


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## rioux (Mar 25, 2016)

Thanks for these information about definition maybe i should look before on google translation but i wasent see any difference in these word thanks you.

Merci beaucoups pour la nuance. Je ne voyais pas vraiment de difference entre ces mots. J'aurrais du verifier sur la traduction de google avant.


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## jason_recliner (Mar 25, 2016)

rioux said:


> This is not for stannous chloride but for smelt 1 grain bar gold to make a teste solution... Ouffff i think i write really bad in english....


Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I think that a ratio of 1 gram of gold per 1 litre of solution makes a pretty decent standard gold testing solution.

So with 1 grain in 15ml of HCl (plus a few ml of bleach?), you will have a solution maybe around 3 to 4 times stronger than that.

Stannous chloride is able to detect gold in very, very, small concentrations. If you want to experiment, take a few drops of your gold solution and dilute it in HCl again, maybe 10x, and test it with stannous. If you keep doing this, you will get a feel for just how miniscule amount of gold can be detected.

It's good policy to write your gold concentration on the bottle.

Edit: I don't know what shape your bar is, but to dissolve it in HCl/Clorox, you should make sure it is hammered to quite thin, so it has a better surface area and more able to dissolve before the chlorine evaporates.


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## rioux (Mar 29, 2016)

So its true my bar just lost 0.02g in 40ml final solution (500mg gold/litter) hcl clorox and i tested it and it done that picture. Im really impress about that! Here the result pic whit stanous chloride.


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