# AP method Dissolved my gold flakes



## Wistian (Dec 11, 2014)

Hi,

I am not a chemist I am a hobbyist and very new to this. So when Replying please treat me like a idiot.

I only found this forum after I started so forgive my mistake please.

I was using AP method to remove gold flakes from trimmed ram. I used way to much Hydrogen Peroxide so the flakes dissolved.

I was trying to find out exactly how to fix this from the forum but the only thing I was able to find that was helpful was the following :

_"The last key note is that if you use too much hydrogen peroxide (3%) to initially generate your copper II chloride you may dissolve some of your gold into solution. If you think more is better and add too much too quickly or use too high of a concentration of hydrogen peroxide you will dissolve gold. The peroxide is a catalyst for the reaction, not the active ingredient. If you do this then simply keep using your AP as directed without adding any peroxide until it becomes saturated with copper and the gold will cement out on it's own. There is no need to add any other precipitants to the solution and doing so will foul the solution."_

Can someone explain exactly what I need to do to get the gold out of the solution. I am not sure how to Cement out the gold.
Thanks and remember I am an idiot.

Regards,


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Dec 11, 2014)

Wistian said:


> Can someone explain exactly what I need to do to get the gold out of the solution. I am not sure how to Cement out the gold.


Wistian,

Welcome to the forum. 

In refining, to "cement" a metal (like your gold), means that we put another metal that is more reactive into a solution, which causes the target material to precipitate out of solution in what kind of looks like wet cement. The quick answer is to just keep using your solution. When you've processed enough, the copper in the fingers will cement any gold out of solution.

Take a read through the Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum. There's a link to a glossary there that will familiarize you with the terms used here. Follow all the links and it will get you off to a good start.

Dave


----------



## sri steve (Dec 11, 2014)

Hi, the advice I will give you is the same as I got when joining this forum and the world of refining.

First; stop what you are doing, search on this forum for answers and read as much as possible about what you are trying to process, it is all here.

There is golden rule about chemical refining, ‘homework’ this comes in the way of reading the threads on this forum and the Hoke book.

What you are trying to do is very basic and once you have done some homework it will all fall into place.

Please understand that you would not be asking this question if you had a basic knowledge of how to strip ram fingers and the answer is in your thread.

Please do as I did and read as possible on the process you wish to do, there are many dangers you need to understand, safety comes first to you and others.
Good luck.


----------



## Wistian (Dec 11, 2014)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Wistian said:
> 
> 
> > Can someone explain exactly what I need to do to get the gold out of the solution. I am not sure how to Cement out the gold.
> ...




Thanks Dave!, 

I will take a read through. So right now I do not have any addition fingers that need processing but it sounds like I could add Bright Copper (Copper 1 for Scrappers). If i add enough it will "cement" out the gold.

Regards,


----------



## butcher (Dec 11, 2014)

Wistian,

Not knowing something does not make anyone an idiot.

You had the answer in the quote you posted you just did not quit understand what it was saying, maybe if I say it a different way.

When you used too much (or too strong) hydrogen peroxide you dissolved both copper and the gold into solution, now you have a chloride solution of both copper and gold ions along with the chlorides, as copper and gold chloride.

If you add elemental copper, this could be from more foils, or from a clean copper metal bar, the chlorides would rather hold copper than your gold, and will cement or precipitate the gold out of solution as it dissolves more copper from your foils or bar.

This is a replacement reaction the copper metal will replace the gold from the solution.

The gold will form a brown powder, you may notice it trying to plate out onto the added copper, but it will not stick very well and can be brushed off the copper buss bar.

If you just added more memory fingers the copper dissolving from them will replace your gold from solution leaving you with gold powder, and possibly gold foils if they too are not dissolved from the excess peroxide...

The gold powder will be fine, and can take some time to settle and will be black in color.

The term cement is normally used for silver as it looks like cement, for gold it is more of a precipitant of elemental gold but as a fine black powder.

Replacement reactions like this, are used often with the chemistry of metals, metals have a series of reactivity, with this we can cement, or replace one metal from solution with another metal that is higher in the reactivity series of metals, and with this list we will know what metal will replace another from solution...

The reactivity series of metals is also helpful in other areas of chemistry, as some non metals are also included in the lists, like hydrogen, carbon and sometimes oxygen, this can be helpful to know a metals reaction with for example acid (hydrogen of the acid) whether the metal will be attacked and how vigorously, whether in its reaction it forms water or hydrogen gas from the hydrogen of the acid... 

For a better understanding do some research on the reactivity series of metals, and replacement reactions in chemistry, this will be very useful to you in your lab work, and know what may be going on in a solution, or how to solve a problem...

Spend some time studying the copper chloride leach, Laser Steve's web site has a document that makes a great start to that study.

To make the answer short, and simple, just dissolve some more memory fingers in your copper chloride solution, collect the gold foils and the black gold powders...


----------



## Wistian (Dec 11, 2014)

butcher said:


> Wistian,
> 
> Not knowing something does not make anyone an idiot.
> 
> ...



Thanks butcher!!! That is exactly what I needed. Very appreciative of the explanation!!


----------

