# AP overkill?



## kronix (Jan 22, 2013)

hey everyone, hows it going?

so my little fish tank bubbler packed it in the other day, so I figured I would get something going that's more durable.

my father in law gave me a diaphragm pump that's rated for 200 gallons and up, and the output is 3/4 hose size. he also gave me a diffuser that's about 4-5 inches long and made out of HDPE it looks like. 

he works in the sewage industry and said these pumps can take a s#^* kicking and he can get me parts easily.

so I cut out a one inch hole in my 5-gallon pail and fed the hose through, threw in 1275 grams fingers and let it go to work. within an hour I could notice foils floating in the solution, but there is still lots on the boards. just from turning the pump on the fluid level rises about 5-6 inches in foam, man this thing rips.

does anyone see any problem with pushing this much air through 3 gallons of AP? do you think this will reduce my foils to sand? its looking like ill find out tomorrow, if I run it all night im sure they will be ready in the morning.

this is the setup,


ill take some pics of the pump and head tomorrow and upload them. the hcl jug is just to weight down the lid as the hose is rigid, it doesn't like to bend. I have a relief hole 3/4 inch on the other side of the lid for air release, and stir it once every hour by hand with a glove, that way I can inspect the fingers to see how far along they are.

this is what I plan to build eventually:


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 22, 2013)

I built something similar using a 110 gallon fish tank, and a gravity pre filter. Instead of having your drain on the bottom of the tank, if you use an aquarium style pre filter that draws off the top, even if you loose power, so long as your sump tank can tank on the level the pre filter is gravity feeding it, it will never overflow. Your design drawing off the bottom will quickly flood the sump if the pump fails or looses power.

Fiberglass will work, however Polypropylene felt will work even better. Both will stand up to AR, so collecting and dissolving the foils is not a problem at all.

Forcing too much oxygen into the tank can cause gold to be dissolved, it will be eventually cemented out as your solution becomes saturated with copper, but it's better to avoid this all together because it will collect at the bottom of your large tank.

I am not injecting any oxygen into the tank at all because I am circulating the solution and pouring back into the tank over a slope, which draws oxygen into the tank, enough so that using air stone/air pump injection would be overkill.

Scott


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## tek4g63 (Jan 22, 2013)

Not sure about your question of over kill. But I think that I can shed some light on why your fish tank bubbler died and what may kill this pump. ( Because I've done it myself  ). 

The fumes that are coming out of that little hole in the top of your bucket are SUPER corrosive! Your bubbler is so close and unprotected that its pulling these fumes right through the pump. It will kill even the strongest of pumps. What I do now is, my AP buckets are on the outside of my shed ( like always ) but I drilled a small hole in the side of the shed so that the bubbler stays safe in the shed and the air hose runs through the hole to the outside. I applied a little rtv around the hose where it exits my shed to help keep bugs out.


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## g_axelsson (Jan 22, 2013)

Put a small porous plug in the release hole, a piece of paper tissue for example. It will show you how much mist is coming from the bucket. Whenever an air bubble is breaking it is formed microscopic droplets and most will settle back in the tank but some will be carried out by the air stream.

Göran


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 22, 2013)

If the solution being pumped back into the tank, pours over a slope, it will pick up enough oxygen so that you don't need a bubbler.

Also, I haven't done this as of yet, but you should be able to use an electrowhinnowing process to recover the copper so that you do not have to keep expanding your solution with water.

The most expensive parts of what I am talking about are the tank, the sump and the acid proof pump, but it has worked out amazing for me, super efficient, with no failures up to date.

Scott


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## joem (Jan 22, 2013)

Ah, that's what you were talking about last night. But I see a safty problem with fumes and corrosion.
The electrical plug is right above your bucket, corrosion and arcing could bring down the whole house.
Keep the pump near the plug but move the bucket to a location outdoors with a cross flow air current.


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## kronix (Jan 23, 2013)

thanks everyone, ill definitely set it up better next time I fire it up. I plan on building a table to sit everything on, I may be able to build a small scrubber for the fumes. on the plus side the foils look great, im filtering them now. I had the pump on for 8 hours yesterday, off all night and on 1 hour today to just agitate the foils. whatever ones were stuck came off easily with the hose on a flat spray setting, inside a colander inside the 5 gallon pail. ill post pictures once I have all the foils together, and a yield with picture of the button. it looks like a decent amount of foils although this is the most fingers I have processed at one time. im shooting for around 5 grams, give or take a little. the total finger weight was 1275 grams so optimistically that would be around 5.69 grams, at 2 grams a pound. 

scott, do you have pictures of your setup, or is that a protected system, if so I understand. also, can you recommend where you get the polypropylene felt, as well as if there is a micron size im looking for? how does the liquid drawing off of the top catch the foils that are on the bottom, or am I misunderstanding something? 

thanks for the help everyone! - Ian


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 23, 2013)

kronix said:


> scott, do you have pictures of your setup, or is that a protected system, if so I understand. also, can you recommend where you get the polypropylene felt, as well as if there is a micron size im looking for? how does the liquid drawing off of the top catch the foils that are on the bottom, or am I misunderstanding something?
> 
> thanks for the help everyone! - Ian



I have everything torn down getting ready to move into a building. I can take pictures of the equipment, but it's not running currently and it's just in parts. But if it will help I will. I have been seriously entertaining the idea of posting my setup, but a little hesitant because I did put a lot of work into it. It's one of those things where proprietary systems and keeping certain things to yourself butts heads with wanting to help other people. 

When I do have it all set up again, I will post pictures and a detailed explanation of what I have done. This forum has given so much to me. 

Lou was the person who turned me onto the PP felt. You can read the post here. He deserves credit for this one.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=15060

The rest of the equipment, except the acid resistant pump, is all off the shelf aquarium technology, the tank is a 110 gallon tru-vu I had laying around that wasn't being used. The sump tank is a 30 converted reef filter. Because of the difficulty in getting specimens, unless you have been a salt water reef tank enthusiast for awhile, the tanks and equipment is coming up for sale dirt cheap. In the last month I have been offered a 240 gallon reef tank set up, and a 90 gallon setup. And for next to nothing.

The pump circulates the acid solution over the slope I was talking about set for about 180-210 degrees over about 8 inches of surface area. I also have the solution split into nozzles inside the tank, aimed at the boards so that it creates a cavatating venturi affect, which helps agitating the foil from the PC boards.

I'll draw something up to help explain what I am talking about, and post it, and like I said I'll take pictures once it's all set up again. I may be interested in selling the entire setup as I am going to start incinerating material, which negates the need for this particular setup. This is great for someone who cannot incinerate on a large scale, yet still wants to process high grade boards.

Scott


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## kronix (Jan 25, 2013)

scott, I understand your reluctance to give away your design for your system, and I am grateful for this forum with members like you that take the time to teach others what you do. have you thought of getting a patent for your system? at least then if you did release the design it would be protected. I don't know much about the patenting process though so, it might be a lot of work. 

I got 5.4 grams of gold from my fingers, heres a couple picture:






theres a bit of frosting on the surface due to a dirty crucible, I plan on re-refining my gold anyways, so its not a big deal. besides, im not selling, hehehee. :lol:


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 25, 2013)

I thought about it, it's only really useful for people who refine on a small scale. The big refineries incinerate the same type of material, and process it much faster.

Soon as I have it set up in the new facility I'll post pictures and information. I decided to share it with no inhibitions. And if it helps other people, then so much the better. I feel I owe this forum and the people associated with it far more than one little design could ever make up. And by posting it, others very well, and most likely will improve upon my design and make something that works even better that I will in turn benefit from.

It's also mostly off the shelf technology, so I cannot really claim to have invented anything, just putting the right pieces together if that makes any sense.

Scott


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## kronix (Jan 25, 2013)

yeah, I guess when your processing thousands of pounds its more economical to just incinerate, melt it all together and put your copper anode in the cell, recovering your values in the sludge. ( at least I think that's how it works lol) 

I have been on the forum for about a year now, and still I feel like im just barely scratching the surface on all the knowledge contained here, but I think I have come a long way. im going to perform my first karat scrap refining today with 20 grams of 6 karat, I already inquarted it about a week ago. I had to use copper, as I had no silver, although that will change soon. I know it will use almost 3 times the amount of nitric, but I had to make due.

I have always been a tinkerer, I like building things, and experimenting, which is probably why I may have annoyed a few members here at first, but now I know that the methods given here are tried and true, coming from years of experience. I now also know that to experiment, you must have a sound understanding of what your doing first or you wont know what the results are telling you. 

I have been a computer tech for about 7 years now, so its only logical that I try to wind a way to economically dispose of my wastes, and try to make a profit doing so. its funny the reason I started this was because my brother had a small amount of fingers and pins, and tried burning/melting them in his woodstove. needless to say his house smelled pretty bad for a day, and he came to me to figure it out. I never would have guessed that this would be something I greatly enjoy doing, and now I have networked a bit with people and I am making a little bit of money on the side, which helps as I have a 1.5 year old and a stay at home mom, so im the breadwinner. like I say to my wife, im having fun, and making money doing so. 

I cant wait to see your pictures scott, and im thankful for you sharing your design so readily. 

so, Im really happy that I found this community of great like minded people, its like my second family haha. 

cheers! - Ian


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## glondor (Jan 25, 2013)

Don't know if this has been covered, but I think there is a thread that addresses high volume of air. (Palladium I think). What I remember is the air volume pulverizes the foils to black powder.


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## kronix (Jan 25, 2013)

it actually wasn't that bad. I ran it 8 hours, let it sit overnight, on for an hour the next day, and it was done. Most of the foils stayed intact. I found that they were actually more whole this way as it was taking a week before with my other pump. I can see how it could cause a problem with thin gold plating though. I tried with some other boards and I could see it coming off like fine gold sand. I believe that my AP tank has quite a bit of fine gold that goes through my coffee filter. I'll have to get some wattman filters I guess. I processed close to 25 lbs of blank boards with gold contact points and only got about a gram of gold leading me to believe that its really fine powder, it was probably only 10 micro inches thick anyways.


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