# potassium cyanide method



## litalita55555 (Mar 8, 2016)

hi 
pleas see the attached video and tell me what is this method 
what is the other material the man put .
he used potassium cyanide and other stuff 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alpZShvrXSo


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## Deano (Mar 8, 2016)

Sodium or potassium cyanide with probably sodium peroxide.

No alkali required, the 25g or so of cyanide tablet will give a pH of over 11 in the less than 2 litres of water shown.

At that concentration the solution will, as shown, take up both gold and copper plating very quickly.

Nothing particularly new or novel in the application as shown.

Deano


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## litalita55555 (Mar 9, 2016)

thanks deano for your reply .
and i hope if u know the material that extracting gold out of the solution .is it like aqua regia process the sodium metabisulfate .


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## nickvc (Mar 9, 2016)

Zinc dust works well, not pure product so needs refining to reach high purity.
Using cyanide comes with inherent dangers please make sure you know what your doing.


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## litalita55555 (Mar 9, 2016)

thanks nickvc for your reply .i put a zinc metal not dust and i am wating to see the reaction .i saw some bubble and i hope it will extract gold well .


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 9, 2016)

Zinc metal is a bad choice. Once the metal is coated with a thin layer if gold (about 12 cents worth per square inch, or less), the gold stops depositing on the zinc. Best is 325 mesh "zinc dust." Lots of surface area. With it, an ounce or two will drop an ounce of gold.


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## litalita55555 (Mar 9, 2016)

thanks goldsilverpro .i will work withe your advice .
but is there an alternative way other than zinc dust . can i use zinc oxide


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## nickvc (Mar 9, 2016)

You can electrowin the solution if you can build a cell, but zinc is simple and works, as GSP said you need powder or dust as the gold will coat larger pieces stopping the reaction.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 9, 2016)

Please do not try to "improve" cyanide stripping process. Do not substitute or experiment with it. You are not going to find anything new or exciting, you are putting yourself and others in real danger.


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## Lino1406 (Mar 9, 2016)

Sodium peroxide reacts violently with water


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## litalita55555 (Mar 10, 2016)

thanks again to all of my friends who answering me on this topic .
i will add a photo of t he metal zinc after putting it in the cyanide .i hope the black powder will be gold even if not so pure


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## litalita55555 (Mar 10, 2016)

i use only sodium cyanide and some of hydrogen peroxide .
i notice that the leaching of gold is so slow but very effective ,i need something more strong and fast .i think even the cyanide is danger but if u use it in a very carfull way and in a fume hod i think it will gives a good result .
thanks to all who helped me and give me advice .


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## nickvc (Mar 10, 2016)

What exactly is your material if we knew that then perhaps we could give you more advice or suggest other processes, faster recovery doesn't necessarily mean better it can be more expensive or leave some values behind.


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## litalita55555 (Mar 10, 2016)

i have 1000 kg of this kind of boards and i work in so much way but i need to make things faster and more efectiv .i like to try another ways of working in this gold refinery ,thats why i try to use the cyanide method .
i am thinking of burning all the boards and put them in a ball mill and after put all stuff in cyanide solution .
i think if i try to make a line of products automatic line that dosent need me to be near the cyanide i think it will give a good results ,
the pic i upload before after extracting the gold withe zinc it was not a lot of boards or gold plated pins and it gave me a unexpected gold and quantity ,

View attachment 4


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## nickvc (Mar 10, 2016)

The process your using is the best and most effective for visible gold plating.
Trying to burn the boards is not going to work too well unless you have a bag house and after burners to remove the toxic fumes which will poison you, your neighbours and the environment.
You need to strip the boards of components some of which will have values which will need different processes, some can be sold for the metals in them, you need to sort and reduce the bulk, cut off fingers if the boards have no other visible plating, do some more research for what is worth recovering and refining.


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## frank-20011 (Mar 10, 2016)

Hello,

"i use only sodium cyanide and some of hydrogen peroxide "

and i thought H2O2 destroy HCN-salts....good to know what to doo with chemicals but especially with cyanides.

greetings!


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## Anonymous (Mar 10, 2016)

It's not HCN salts. It's CN salts- please get your terminology correct.


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## 4metals (Mar 10, 2016)

It is scary to have members speaking openly about cyanide and admitting they know little about treating the waste when they're done. 



> and i thought H2O2 destroy HCN-salts....good to know what to doo with chemicals but especially with cyanides.



And this is exactly why this forum does not condone cyanide use by amateurs. Too many things can go wrong!


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## nickvc (Mar 10, 2016)

I'm with you 101% 4metals but people are going to do it anyway, we can't stop them but perhaps we can stop them hurting themselves or the environment.


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## litalita55555 (Mar 13, 2016)

thanks to all who share withe me his concern about what i asked .and i know its dangerous but i thought it will be more effective , i will stop working withe cyanide ,i only do 1 test and i will not make it again .but it will be great to try it better than u will be thinking of it ,


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## nickvc (Mar 13, 2016)

If you have 1000 kilos of this material then this method is the only way for the exposed gold, it's cheap effective and fairly quick, the caveat is that you have to know what you are doing, from start to safe disposal of the solutions.
Deano had a thread where he described an electro winning cell set up, which can be scaled up which will keep your solution volumes down and recover your values, the thread was things of interest to members I think.
Your first job is to strip the boards etc and identify which items have values and value and keep separate for easier processing, that is if you are going to recover and refine this material yourself.
Is this a one off parcel or is there more to come? What did you pay for it? Do you have a good knowledge of recoveries and refining? Do you have the time, knowledge and money to do this yourself?
We don't know your situation or background to be able to advise further.


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## litalita55555 (Mar 14, 2016)

thanks nick i bought the 1000 kg for 1500$ and there is a lot of hard disk for servers and a lot of power supply but the 1000 kg is board as u see in the pic .
i used to do the sulpharic revers electroplating and its great but only in gold plated pins ,but this will take a lot of time to get the pins out of the boards ,so i try to know anew ways .
as i told u i make only an experiment on cyanide and i think i will not do it again i will try to fined another way .
and i think i will get more parcel to work withe .


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## nickvc (Mar 14, 2016)

Well I'm no expert on e scrap but that seems a really good buy to me, perhaps one of our more knowledgeable members could give an idea of what it's worth.
One thing I would say is concentrate on getting the easy to recover material, pins, fingers and plated boards sorted first, visible gold , I'm not sure if any of the chips contain values, again perhaps someone who knows can add a comment here, but with the volume you have there is no faster cheaper more efficient process than your trial. If you want my opinion I'd rather not be around concentrated warm/ hot sulphuric it's downright nasty and dangerous, but the cell works but it's slow especially with volumes of material.
I think you are going to have to cherry pick what you can or will do and send the rest out to a commercial refiner, or keep if your likely to have more material to make the shipping worthwhile, there are companies that buy as seen in the North America and Europe not sure if you have people near you that do the same.
Hopefully you will get some more feedback on the value and the material that is worth saving.


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