# ceramic pyrolysis



## Dlog Renim (Jul 14, 2012)

Hi all

So now that i went thru the electrolytic cell.. i taught i could go with flat-pack / chip / package / ceramic..

So to see a little bit more into what i will be working i made a x-small test.. i took number and picture..

My question is with the bigger one.. the ashes or ceramic powder stay on top.. no way i can sink it in the water.. 
Is there something good in that powder ?


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## Marcel (Jul 15, 2012)

PM content in the white or black ash is close to nothing.
Chip housings are made of glass-filled epoxy, which is another term for : sand with glue.
Only the metallic fraction contains some PMs.


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## Dlog Renim (Jul 15, 2012)

tank you for the information

so that mean once the epoxy is to ashes.. PM are easy to recuperate


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## ericrm (Jul 30, 2012)

same probleme here 

i know marcel say that there is no pm in the ash but i would gess that there is pm 'trap' in the ash
so does someone have a solution???


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## ericrm (Jul 30, 2012)

i am curently trying the jet dry solution ,i will give info on how it worked later


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## maynman1751 (Jul 30, 2012)

Jet dry works great! Also a few drops of dish soap will work too. I prefer the jet dry because it doesn't foam up with agitation. Add a few drops of jet dry and manually sink the remaining ash. 
By the way Marcel, there is considerable values in the black/white 'gravels'! Some gold and metallic fragments get ground off or removed during incineration and crushing. On some chips, I've actually gotten more gold from the 'gravels' than the metal.


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## Palladium (Jul 30, 2012)

:mrgreen:


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## Calg5 (Jul 30, 2012)

Hang on to the Canadian penny in the photo. As of February 2013, the Canadian penny will not be minted any more.


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## ericrm (Aug 1, 2012)

the jet dry solution works very well ,at my surprise i tought everything has been powderise ,but it is not, most of it is in 1/8 inch size ,everythin has to get back in the mill for a longuer time


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## 924T (Sep 27, 2012)

ericrm,

What kind of mill are you using?

Ball mill?

Cheers,

Mike


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## Geo (Sep 27, 2012)

this is what i did with my last big batch of chips. i incinerated to a white chalky look. i broke the chips apart and removed the iron with a strong magnet. i took the ash with what ever metal was left and put it in a $5 blender from the thrift store. it worked great. it powdered the ash very finely. i then ran the ash through a half piece of 4" corrugated drain pipe just like it was black sand concentrates. guess what? it worked. the first 5-6 riffles had visible gold wires and i didnt see any past that. a 4' piece of 4" solid corrugated drain pipe split length wise. use a piece of 1x4 or 1x6 board slightly shorter than the pipe and attach the half pipe to the board with a screw in each end and one in the middle on top of a riffle. it works wonderfully. the next time i do some chips, ill make a short video and post it to show what im talking about.


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## etack (Sep 27, 2012)

something that I'v been thinking of is taking the ash trying a flux and melting is with cemented Ag pouring it into a cone mold.

I currently dont have a furnace yet but that will come very soon.

This is just a thought

Any thing wrong with this?

Eric


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## ericrm (Sep 27, 2012)

924T said:


> ericrm,
> 
> What kind of mill are you using?
> 
> ...



you can see my two first ball mill there, the one from Harold and other, sadly both of mine are dead ... im working on the third one but time and money have once again put this on the side...
anyway there a lot of good info on that post

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12552&p=157061#p157061


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## 924T (Oct 1, 2012)

Wow, Geo!

Here I've been agonizing over spending the money on either a chain flail mill or a small hammer mill, $1100+, each, 
to grind up pyrolized chips, and you turned them to dust with a used $5 blender!

I am impressed. I would never have thought of trying a blender, probably because I wouldn't have thought the
blender's skinny little blades would be tough enough.

Amazing.

How did you bust the chips up after pyrolizing them?

Cheers,

Mike


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## 924T (Oct 1, 2012)

ericrm, thanks for the reply!

I didn't see any links to pictures, but it helped my planning to find out that you've been
successful grinding the chips with a ball mill.

How long did it take you to grind chips to powder (and how many Kg of chips were you grinding)
with your ball mills?

What went wrong with your first 2 ball mills?

Cheers,

Mike


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## Geo (Oct 1, 2012)

its been raining here for two days straight. as soon as it dries up some, ill get some pictures of what i use for a mortar and pestle. ill describe it as best i can now. the mortar is a large cast iron pot and the pestle is the large steel bolt out of a concrete house jack. the bolt is a little more than 1" in diameter and has a 2"steel plate welded to one end. this has a washer and nut threaded onto it and fits in the top of the concrete jack base.you raise the jack by turning the nut. i had a job as a property maintenance man on some rental property a few years ago and had a couple of these jacks left from that time.the bolt is quite heavy and the 2" square plate does a good job on pyrolized chips.


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## ericrm (Oct 1, 2012)

sorry i ment to copy and past and i just copy...
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12552&p=157061#p157061


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## NoIdea (Oct 1, 2012)

Coffee bean grinder works well too, have had mine for over eight years, i replace the blade every so often and at the same time give it a good clean, it's starting to get a bit sad, bushes and brushes wearing out, one day soon it is going to go poooof and that will be that.  

Deano


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## 924T (Oct 2, 2012)

NoIdea---------------a coffee bean grinder? I love it. This just keeps getting better and better!

Any idea what mesh size you end up with after running the pyrolized chips through your bean grinder?
Do you smash the chips prior to grinding them?

Cheers,

Mike


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## 924T (Oct 2, 2012)

ericrm--------------thanks for going to the trouble to provide the link to your picture----------a gearbox problem
would definitely stop the milling; maybe a servo motor would give you the variable speed ability you want.
Control boards for servo motors are plentiful, not hard to find.

From what I've read here on the forum, getting the rotational speed just right is critical to obtaining
full performance from a ball mill.

Cheers,

Mike


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## 924T (Oct 2, 2012)

Geo------------your chip crusher mortar & pestle sounds like an Arnold Shwarzeneggar rig----extremely
heavy duty------------how much force are you applying when you bring the pestle down (conversely, are you
simply lifting and dropping, and letting the mass of the pestle do the work)?

Cheers,

Mike


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## Geo (Oct 2, 2012)

actually, i just move it in a circular motion. if the chips are pyrolized well enough, you can break the bodies up with your hand. if it wasnt for the needle sharp legs on some of them, that how i would do it. i found out quickly that crushing them in your fist caused a hand full of holes. if you strike downward, the force hitting the chips that happen to be laying on their sides causes them to fly into the air and in all directions.


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## 924T (Oct 3, 2012)

Thanks, Geo!

That answers a question that I'd been forgetting to ask for quite a long time.

I thought you'd need to pound the stuffings out of the pyrolized chips, and am surprised
and relieved to find out that's not the case-----------not having pyrolized anything yet,
I had no idea the chips would be that brittle/breakable.

Many thanks,

Mike


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## 924T (Oct 9, 2012)

NoIdea,

I went out looking at coffee bean grinders tonight, and they were all pretty small, much smaller than
I was expecting.

The were subtitled as 'burr' grinders, which I've never heard of, so I've got to research what that is.

What size/brand is the one that you use?

Is it considered to be a burr grinder?

Cheers,

Mike


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## srlaulis (Jan 30, 2013)

Geo,

Did you ever get to making the video or taking pictures of the corrugated pipe you use as a sluice for processing the chips?

Steven


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## Geo (Jan 30, 2013)

srlaulis said:


> Geo,
> 
> Did you ever get to making the video or taking pictures of the corrugated pipe you use as a sluice for processing the chips?
> 
> Steven



look here.a picture was posted of the home made mini sluice on this thread. i learned this from the same person when i was a teenager.people called him "Buzzard". he was the father of Tom and Perry Massie from the GPAA and LDMA. back in my prospecting days, i got around. :lol: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=17040


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## srlaulis (Jan 30, 2013)

Geo said:


> srlaulis said:
> 
> 
> > Geo,
> ...



I love Tom Massie! He has a show on the Outdoors channel I watch every weekend called Gold Fever!


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## eeTHr (Jan 30, 2013)

924T---

A burr grinder uses two metal parts with an adjustable gap between them, to do the grinding. This way you can specify your ground size.

The other kind is like a blender, with spinning blades, and you have to stop it when the ground coffee is about the right size.

The burr type is considered superior, because you can predetermine the ground size, and they usually produce less powder. Of the burr types, the lower speed ones produce a more consistant ground size.

The spinning blade type would probably be better for powderizing, if the material will flow up from the very bottom, to enable contact with the blades.

But blenders usually have higher capacities than coffee grinders, and are probably more durable.


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