# Extracting Gold From Titanium



## chris99460 (Feb 15, 2016)

I have a huge piece of titanium that was spectral analyzed to have over 3 oz of gold in it. How do I get the gold out  Is it even possible? Thanks!


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## macfixer01 (Feb 15, 2016)

You aren't confusing a gold–colored coating of titanium nitride for gold metal, are you?


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## chris99460 (Feb 15, 2016)

No, not at all. It is a large piece of titanium that contains over 3 oz of gold inside of it. I'll see if I can add a picture of the specimen.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Feb 15, 2016)

You would get a better answer if you posted a picture of what you have.


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## nickvc (Feb 15, 2016)

I'm not sure of your knowledge of chemistry or refining so I'm not saying you should try these methods but I gather titanium will slowly dissolve in hot fairly concentrated sulphuric, not nice to mess with, also I believe it will break down if electolised in sodium bromide solution, this should leave the gold free from most of the titanium.
As i said make sure you know what your doing and understand the dangers involved before attempting any processes.


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 15, 2016)

Where did this chunk come from? What was it used for? What does it weigh? Why did you suspect gold would be present in the 1st place? When are you going to post a photo of it? Are you aware that XRF often gives false readings.


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## Lou (Feb 15, 2016)

If by XRF it's likely W


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## chris99460 (Feb 15, 2016)

I was able to get some photos. Here is what I am talking about.




















I had this specimen spectral analyzed a few years back at a facility that had high tech equip. in Las Vegas. It came from an estate sale of all places in Henderson. The analyzer came back with Titanium and part gold. I calculated over 3 ozs gold based on the print out they gave me of the percentage of gold and then taking the weight of the specimen and doing simple math. 

Assuming that the analyzer was correct; I had the test repeated with same results, is this a door stop or something that I can cash in?

Thanks!


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## Harold_V (Feb 15, 2016)

Color me a skeptic. I'm having a hard time thinking gold will alloy with titanium----and an even harder time trying to understand why the two would be found together. 

I'll be watching to see what develops. Could be I'll learn something from this one. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 15, 2016)

Harold_V said:


> Color me a skeptic. I'm having a hard time thinking gold will alloy with titanium----and an even harder time trying to understand why the two would be found together.
> 
> I'll be watching to see what develops. Could be I'll learn something from this one.
> 
> Harold


I looked it up, Harold. It will alloy, but it's complicated and it would take an induction furnace in an inert atmosphere. I have the same problem understanding why they would be found together.

Chris,

Does it feel quite light when you heft it? Ti is less than twice as heavy as Al and half as heavy as copper.

What does that piece next to the Coke can weigh?

Chris


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## alexxx (Feb 15, 2016)

the only source I can see where these two would meet each other would be from aircraft shielding.
titanium is fairly used in planes. If an important shielding part would be used into a plane, it would probably be made out of titanium and brazed with platinum (maybe a false reading from the xrf). Gold brazing on titanium is unlikely, but possible...

I am no expert in this field, maybe lazer steve came accross such combination. he might know...

edit.. not sure if a plasma torch / cutter could alloy these two... someone cutting or doing repairs could have alloyed these two simply by cutting a piece of brazed titanium... guessing here... I love titanum, it's a beautifull metal with amazing properties... Have you seen the sparks over a grinder, amazing...

edit 2 ... If this material is titanium, you would be able to bend with bare hands the small isolated chunk visible on the upper right corner of the 2nd picture

edit 3... it should also get back its original position after bending it.. Titanium has a weird memory when you bend it

edit 4... man I love Titanium...


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## Harold_V (Feb 16, 2016)

alexxx said:


> edit 4... man I love Titanium...


Speaking from the position of one who has machined the material, I can't say I share the adoration you seem to display. It's nasty stuff to machine, although modern tungsten carbide tools appear to have improved considerably, making it somewhat less challenging. It's tough to machine, rapidly dulling tools, which fail virtually immediately, giving almost no warning. That has proven to be the case so predictably that changes of cutting edges (indexable carbide insert tooling) are often accomplished by time instead of performance. 

Thanks for your comments, GSP!

Harold


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## Geo (Feb 16, 2016)

Ti is fairly inert in acid. I would take a small sample off the main piece and see how it reacts in AR. It may be a slow go though even in hot AR.

One exception that you might try is boiling a piece in HCl. The HCl you get off the shelf at lowes is not concentrated enough to really effect the Ti metal much. By boiling it, you are both heating and concentrating the HCl acid. This will produce some very corrosive fumes and vapors. Do this in a fume hood or outside well away from things of importance to you like family and pets. Anything made of metal in the vicinity where this is done will start oxidizing almost immediately. Do not do this around metal objects or tools. Be sure to wear PPE's and do not breath the vapors created. It is very toxic and corrosive to mucus glands and lung tissues. The Ti will dissolve slowly leaving the gold behind as a solid. 

The other best alternative is an electrolytic cell. I can not give details about it other than electrolysis is considered the best way to oxidize titanium.


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## allenp (Feb 16, 2016)

Titanium is readily soluble in hot Hydrochloric acid. The reaction takes some time to get going because the inevitable oxide coating is slow to dissolve. Having said all that, the metal looks too bright to be Titanium, which is dull and in the case of melted metal as in the photo, if it was Titanium it would be totally oxidised on the surface


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## Platdigger (Feb 16, 2016)

Besides titanium and gold, what other metals did the xrf indicate?


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## Lou (Feb 16, 2016)

Bust off a piece and I'll check it for you.

Titanium doesn't dissolve (nigh at all) in AR and sulfuric or chloride aren't even fast enough from a production standpoint.


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 16, 2016)

All the info I found on practical Au-Ti alloys were high gold/low titanium, the opposite of this thread. The Ti was used to strengthen gold used in jewelry or dental applications. I found the following article interesting (making a 99Au/1Ti alloy).

http://www.saimm.co.za/Journal/v089n06p173.pdf 

In the movies, Ironman's suit was a Ti/Au alloy


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## samuel-a (Feb 16, 2016)

humm... funny... it is a strange alloy.... I know.

You can cut off a few pieces, bring to white hot in furnace and sprinkle NaNo3 and some borax... if gold is there, eventually it will bead up.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Feb 17, 2016)

XRF scanning works by fluorescing a specific point on the material being tested. Anything outside that point will only really offer noise when you look at the actual graph. If you are not looking at the XRF graph when testing alloys of unknown composition, the software may translate the information incorrectly and give a false positive for something like Ti.

The glob of metal looks like over pour, or slag that was spooned off the top of a melt, but it doesn't look alloyed. If something was smelted that caused Ti to come to the top where it could be taken off, it might look something like this. But I'm not so sure that's the case either.

The glob looks like there are at least two different metals, maybe more. The shiny metal that seems to mostly be on the outside does not look like Ti to me, but it could be. The dull metal looks more like Ti excite that it does have some color to it, it looks like.

You might try breaking the material up so you can scan the inside. The metal doesn't actually look melted together, but more like it is fused together, meaning that the heat never was hot enough to melt whatever metal that it is that looks chunky now, and not smooth. You might find by scanning different places on the material that you get different readings. I see this a lot when I test slag for values, where you can see metals stratified in the slag. Testing one spot might give a high reading for one metal, another spot for something totally different, and neither of the two showing the other.

When metal fuses together, the metals that were able to melt sometimes coat the outside, and become shiny while the more difficult to melt metal that is fused will lay right underneath the outside layer. 

My opinion is that it is not Ti but might be W as Lou suggested. Or it might be something else all together different. The XRF used to scan can only translate the information according to what the software is programmed to translate. If you look at the raw data you will have a much better understanding of what you are looking at. You might also scan many different places, try breaking up the material in larger chunks so you can see the inside, etc.

There is absolutely no way to tell how much gold might be present in this blob of metal. Most XRF technology will only scan the very surface of the metal, so there is no way of telling what is under the surface. It could also be that you only obtained high readings for gold in only one spot. That does not equate to the entire piece being the same alloy, or that it is alloyed at all. Unless you know for sure the metals were alloyed, and you were able to scan the inside, and only if those two values are closely matched can you then state with any certainty that there is x amount of gold in the material.

It doesn't look like an alloy to me, not with all the different colors running through it.

Scott


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## nickvc (Feb 17, 2016)

I must admit having now seen a photograph of the material it really doesn't seem to be the right colour for titanium, I used to sell lots of it as jewellery and it has a definite grey hue to it even when highly polished, it looks like stainless steel which again I sold.
Scott hit the nail on the head with the comment about xrf results, they can be fantastic if used correctly and have the right software but do have a habit of filling gaps in the results with guesses if not programmed for the specific material on test.
If it were me I'd take Lou,s offer, if he can't tell you give in.


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## Geo (Feb 17, 2016)

I got some pieces once that came from a plating shop that looks like the metal in the picture. It looked more like silver than anything but it tested mostly for nickel. It didn't seem to have any precious metal content that I could determine. The anodes were titanium is what I was told. I did an XRF and chemical test of my own. I wound up selling it for nickel just to get rid of it.


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## upcyclist (Feb 17, 2016)

If it's yours, are you willing to do destructive testing? If so...

Have you hammered or rolled it? How's the malleability?

If you can get it thinner, you could also attack it with acids. Anything that dissolves in HCl isn't worth your time anyway (as far as refining is concerned).


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## nickvc (Feb 18, 2016)

upcyclist said:


> If it's yours, are you willing to do destructive testing? If so...
> 
> Have you hammered or rolled it? How's the malleability?
> 
> If you can get it thinner, you could also attack it with acids. Anything that dissolves in HCl isn't worth your time anyway (as far as refining is concerned).



The malleability test is a good idea, if it does seem malleable chances are it isn't titanium.
Your nearly right about HCl but it will actually dissolve Pd if it's in small particles and we had a discussion running some time back about it actually holding small amounts of gold in solution, if your sensible it all goes into a stockpot or is tested so it really is just semantics.


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## ssabovic (Feb 18, 2016)

titanium is very light metal and if you grind it spark should be white.


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## chris99460 (Feb 18, 2016)

The specimen is not malleable. It is extremely hard and will not bend.


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## Lou (Feb 18, 2016)

I can dissolve a gram for you if you would like and report the content back...


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## chris99460 (Feb 21, 2016)

Hi Lou. Thank you for your offer. I am going to try to get a piece off of it. Let me know how I can send it to you. Thank you very much!


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