# First time electrolyzer de-plating



## adam_mizer (Dec 3, 2010)

First time user here, beginner at large!
I purchased from store and Steve basic supply's needed to deplate pins ala:LazerSteve style so to speak.
Am writing some informational notes as I proceeded to deplate some pins.
This setup is using 3cups 96% sulphuric, 2 DC power supplies one providing 12vdc power to the CCPWM circuit and the other provides whatever DC voltage I decide to choose.
First time so set at 12vdc deplating, connected a thermal couple to check temps as I go so start was a cool 51 degree, 12vdc, 60% duty cycle 4khz pulse started at 4.6amp with 110grams pins.
For some reason only 110grams pins fits into the copper liner.
Okay so a bunch of small white hydrogen bubbles were coming off the lead, so I decided to turn down to 9vdc and it brought me to 3.1amps.
Run time 20min and donetemp rose to 55degree. Rinse pins and reset for round 2.

2nd time 112grams pins same setting 9vdc start at 4.8amp and drop to nothing in just about 20minutes then poke around for minute and done temp rose to 68degree.

3rd time 113grams pins same setting 9vdc start at jump to 7.5amp relax 1 minute to 6.5amp and slowly dropping to zero amps in less than 20minutes temp rose to 82degree at finish, but this time there was some float build up in cell. Salt/metal don't know?

So I stopped here cleaned/rinsed covered everything to ask a question about the float build-up that just started. 
Does this float start because the acid is starting to get saturated?
Can I still run more pins and not worry about the float?

There was more float right when I stopped and while cleaning I tried to knock it down some.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 3, 2010)

The floating stuff is probably some of your gold and maybe some copper. Looks nice. A lot of equipment you have hooked up there.
Keep
It
Simple


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## adam_mizer (Dec 3, 2010)

Don't know what the float is but at some points it has a gold tone and at other points it has a gray tone.
Either way its metallic and has to be dealt with good or bad.
So I ran nearly another 300grams pins for a total of 610grams pins in this batch.
Smaller batches ran much faster.

The only added parts in this system is a CCPWM that I use with hydrogen gas.
This one just happens to be in 2 small enclosures but its really like one part to me, looks like a few wires but its pretty much nothing. 12vdc and a negative wire that will be pulsed thats all.
I like the way this is operating and no where have I seen here anybody speaking of how the amperage works from high to low like I'm seeing.
Also there are no real posted tempuatures, all I see is warm hot and boil and that is hard to relate to when people talk of boil and really mean something else.
Whats that about? Temperature plays an important role because from what I have read at times if temps are too hot it will effect other metals than what you are trying to make a primary reaction on. 
This unit turns on and 20 min later there's no current on 110grams pins. I poke around and get a little current jumping and moving for a minute at the most and its done its job.
Funny thing as to why the current goes to zero but I'm thinking it has something to do with this particular CCPWM.
Has anybody posted their current usage on the battery chargers? Whats the current when the batch is done?
Just trying to see if we can relate something here.


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## jimdoc (Dec 3, 2010)

Its been a while since I ran my cell.When the current stops dropping it should be done.You don't want to leave it in passed that point to keep the base metals from coming into the solution.I don't remember my meter dropping to zero,I think it dropped to about 1,and you can hear the sound change when the gold is off.Hard to explain,but you will get the hang of it.
You don't want to let it get too hot,so let it cool down between batches.

Jim


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 4, 2010)

I didn't really mean anything bad about yours. It is just a fact that most are going to look at your setup and not understand what you have and get confused by the wireing. A simple positive wire and negative wire from your source is all most setups need.

When your material is finished deplating your load will drop because it has finished the deplating process, your gold will deplate faster than your copper will dissolve till you reach certain conditions. Either your solution has become saturated with water and therefore starts dissolving your copper faster. your solution has been run too long under a load and has heated up and needs a cool down time, a warm solution will dissolve your base metals faster than a cool solution, it also might indicate you are possibly trying to deplate too much material at once in too small of a container.

The power source that I use is a simple old and I mean old Dayton battery charger. 120 AMP max load, 6V Hi/Low, 12V Hi/Low, Boost. The container I did use held about 3/4 of a liter or solution and I ran it on 12V Low with just a hot and ground. It has a built in amp meter and when the load drops I know the material is finished. It will deplate a pentium pro gold top in around 1 min. This container set in another container the held an ice bath. If I remember right around 75 pentiums could be done with a round of solution. Very simple setup.


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## butcher (Dec 4, 2010)

I like the nature of your expierimental approach.
I would be concerned about the electronic equiptment and corrosion.
I am having trouble figuring out what ccpwm stands for?
are you making this a little more complicated than it is?


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## adam_mizer (Dec 4, 2010)

I see here at the forum most electrical setups if not all are straight DC voltage.
CCPWM stands for Current Controlled Pulse Width Modulation.

Lets start with Pulse Width Modulation , instead of a straight line DC voltage now I have a line with breaks to zero volts. _|_|_|_|_| on/off and in this case I left the on/off frequency at 4000 times per second. What this does right off the start is allow you to use less current because the current value you see is now an average of the on/off period. 
Now it has a a duty cycle which means how long will it be on. When I say duty is 60% it is on 60% of that pulse. Straight DC is 100% duty no pulse.
Current Control is the amperage setting I can choose or set, for example if I want my highest amperage to be 6amps and I put my pins in and in many cases they jump to 7-8 amp at start what the current control would do is not allow it to pass over 6 amps by changing the pulse duty cycle so instead of 60% on time it would allow whatever on time it needs not to pass 6amps of current which means the duty on time could easily be 20-30% of the time.

This control can do many interesting things, thats why I'm using it to discover its use in the electrolytic cell configuration.
You have heard of people rejuvinating dead battery's before haven't you? Thats done with a pulsed DC. The effect is pulsing off (dropping off) the build-up that happens on the electrodes to expose fresh surface area.

Pulsing DC voltage and the ability to change the voltage hi/low with the control of current threshold and duty cycle will have effect on the efficiency of the process.
Thats what I see.

Here is the preliminary take on this first experience of using a cell set-up.
My low temp was 51 degree and thats unusual but its winter time so its nice having a cool temp to start with.
You speak of warm or hot which is a wide variation of actual temperature.
Whats warm? Is luke warm 70 degree's? Then warm is 75 to over 85 degree's?. Hot is just starting somewhere around 90 degree's, too hot to touch starts at 125 well you can touch it but at this temp there is slight uncomfort in the feeling.

With the CCPWM the temp is now slightly controllable and won't run away as in a straight DC voltage.
My highest temperature was 82 degree's, I bet some of you have started your equipment in excess of 82 degree's because in Southern California there are many days/months that 82 and over is constant the the ambient temp is 82 or higher.
Well if my thinking is correct 82 degree's falls somewhere in the warm zone, its not hot. Warm is good is it not?
Do you think I pulled copper into my solution at 82degree's?
I think it will take over 95-100 degree's temp on the acid to start to eat into and dissolve the copper, but I am not at that experience level to acually state that temp zone. Thats a guess and I would like to know more about temps.
What I want to find out is what is the acid temp threshold that the copper will start to dissolve into the solution? Simple is there an answer? Not hot or whatever but what is the actual stated temperature?

Here are some of your problems with changing values here at this forum.
A measurement of value done by one person is not the same as the measurement done by another. This is variation in equipment as well as technique and as well as stating hot, warm and cold.
Percentage of acid and dilution is variable.
DC chargers are not all the same, actually some of them most likely do pulse, but with the different chargers the voltages can be from 13.5 and up to many more volts.

So what I'm saying is there could be a better understanding for me at least if I control the temperatures and currents and voltages then I could make better assumptions of my yields in the process I am using and not make mistakes of for example allowing copper to get into solution because of a temperature variable.

Maybe with a CCPWM some new method will arrise, someone has to experiment don't they?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 4, 2010)

You are aware that when the harger is running it is taking your gold for a short period of time and dissolving it in the acid and as your gold migrates away from your material is becomes a solid material again. Well if your flow of electricity is only running 60% of the time then you are loosing 40% of production over that time frame the system is running. And if you are trying to control the temp of your solution and it chngeas to only running 30% ofthe time you are loosing 70% of your production. If you want to control your temp simply leran what materila you are running and lower the voltage to accomidate a slower process and not build up as much heat.


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## butcher (Dec 4, 2010)

Thanks for the explanation of CCPWM, I am very familiar with pulse width modulation as I have built several electronic circuits using it, and have worked on many control circuits that used it have also used pulsed width modulated current in electrolysis experiments (unrelated to refining metals). in electrolysis where you are not trying to plate an anode but to get metal into solution it works well, but my experience is limited here. I just have never heard the abbreviation of CCPWM.

Pulsing may have benefits in your cell, but may also have draw backs and create some problems?
I do not use this cell, but my understanding is that it is generating per sulfuric Anion, which allows it to dissolve the gold, my guess is straight flat line DC current would keep that ION flowing towards the anode (gold pins you are deplating), and keep it in that vicinity.
Gold will not dissolve in sulfuric acid, but will from the per sulfuric, this per sulfuric bubbling at anode dissolves the gold but as soon as these gold Cations move a short distance from the anode and inter the sulfuric environment (on their way towards the Cathode, they fall out of solution, my concern using pulsing current is you only have per sulfuric a short period of the duty cycle and with a fast pulsing relatively high frequency maybe your gold will plate back to anode or not leave as easily.

I do not know, but looks like you will find out, I am interested in your finding on this.
I would get my equipment in a separate room (environment) from the cell or where I refined, example my power supply would be inside the shed and cell outside, and just wires to connect the two.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 4, 2010)

Butcher so you see the only difference from pwm and ccpwm is the current control limiting part.

I'm very curious on this set-up I decided to try too!
The material deplated nicely and I'm thinking there is no copper in it.
The cell contents are settling, figure this should have its 24 hour period before I siphon it off and filter.
The clean up containers both have material settling right away in them from rinse so it appears that it should be working properly.

I have much study and test to do to really learn about these processes.

Also have an idea on vacuum cleaner vapor processing hood.
Maybe you have heard of the drywall filter container used when sanding drywall to totally reduce powder from being airborne.
It works like this: vacuum cleaner on end pulling air through a sealed bucket filled with water.
What happens is the water should catch/filter the airborne particles and in the case of drywall it does.
Now if we modify the piece in the bucket to disperse the water into small streams instead or the large stream then it will wash/filter any contaminants.
This is the next thing I want try.


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## butcher (Dec 4, 2010)

Look up scrubbers; it will give you some ideas, sounds like what you are talking about.
if you wanted to determine about how much copper your solution has you could take a small measured sample, dilute sample, cement any copper and dry and weigh. (just diluting may also give clue by color of solution.
concentrated H2SO4 does not attack copper easily in this type of cell, run with straight DC, and practically no water in acid and as gold is removed the way I understand the amperage drops off.
As I stated I have not used this type of cell, Laser Steve has written about it and it has been discussed by many more informed people than I.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 4, 2010)

Yes thats it home made scrubber. A vacuum scrubber in my case.

I'm not experienced yet but by the looks of the material that was unplated it appears perfectly sound less the gold plating.
Will inspect it and try to siphon it off later this evening.
I'm curious to see what 610 grams of board edge pins, DB sockets, cable connectors etc... will produce in the end.


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## butcher (Dec 5, 2010)

hopefully some pretty heavy yellow metal.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 5, 2010)

Well its still coming along slowly, posting my details of this begining stage of experience.

Got to pouring off not siphoning the black acid bath.
On the bottom was the mud which was saved into another container and has a primary wash.
Looking at the acid from the bath thinking there is still much much black in it and it has not settled enough, so last night I heated it to warm and let it set overnight. Thinking that because of my cold garage in the 40's the sulphuric is so thick it won't allow the powder to drop. This did work well as I poured off one more time there was plenty black settled again in the bottom and the poured off acid although still plenty dark I was able to see through the edge from the top to the side, a nice deep amber/brown color.
I will still use this remainder to run more pins before a final filter.

Speaking of filter, wow! What a job cleaning stuff. I guess a guy can filter forever. Cleaning, lightly juggling the pins gave me a small amount of good black powder. Rinsing the copper and the lead gave more black powder, didn't want to brush the lead or copper (just rinse). After a quick wash down of the filter catchings into my main container, then saved all filter paper and residuals in a bucket.
Playing with waste water adjusting PH.

I was a little worried what Barron said about ionic exchange but the pulsing seemed to work alright.
Still having more material to work with I'll run 500grams or so with a straight 12VDC and take the informational data of the 2 runs and see if I have differences in my processing.

Things I have noticed about the acid:
While pulsing no smell or vapor is being produced. Will see if there is any difference using straight 12vdc.
While testing small acid samples and putting them in water and while cleaning the sulphuric acid for the first instant there is a brief vapor at the point its mixed with water.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 5, 2010)

Sorry about that, Iwasn't trying yo imply it wouldn't work. What you are doing is fine if it makes you comfortable. It is fine from a hobbiest stand of view. But if you were in a production setup where time is money it might cause you to devote more time to processing the material. Time can't be made up once it is gone it is gone....


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## FrugalEE (Dec 5, 2010)

This is interesting. Adam, I applaud your efforts to be precise. I'm a retired electronic engineer and I recognized PWM, but needed an explaination for the CC part. I have yet to try deplating gold in concentrated sulpheric. I have plenty of electronic equipment and know how to design circuits once I have the need to do so. Some current limiting is pretty much necessary for the standpoints of preventing damage to the power supply and possibly the operator, but is it desirable for the deplating process? One can always reduce the peak current by running smaller batches. Is that better than using more currrent limiting with larger batches? Is current limiting done by reducing voltage better than by use of PWM?

I'm staying tuned to find out.

FrugalEE


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## butcher (Dec 5, 2010)

keep up the good work, it is interesting.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 5, 2010)

This appears questionable.
From a first timer is this auric chloride okay? Meaning do I see a faint tint of green in there?
Also the salts in the filter. What are they, or what could they be.
As you see the processing was pins, taken from 1970's test equipment up through 1990's computers.

As far as the CCPWM my take on it was I can run at higher voltages above the norm and keep the heating down to a minimum.
Once a current is chosen from past experience then set as a limit it will not exceed the setting which again keeps the heat down and the voltage can be high.
The controlled current will automatically adjust the duty cycle to maintain its peak setting.
From my small experience it works okay at the setting I used.
In order to gain experienced knowledge now I have to run a batch at straight DC like a charger and then another batch at excess voltage and still one more batch at very low voltage and take the data of deplate time, acid temperature and current.

Now I'm concerned whether this auric chloride appears visually correct.
I appreciate your reply's. 

FrugalEE as you see at this point the data has to be collected by doing the several batch runs at the different settings. Once the information is acquired we'll be able to tell if a CCPWM is a worthy tool or not.

Barren your replys are noted, and they are all good. I'm making it a point to find out if this method can become usefull in an overall process. As you can see only one setting was used to run six small batches. The 5th batch was approximately 90grams and took 15min verses the 20 min at 110-114grams and the 6th batch took just under 10minutes at approximately 60 grams of these pins.
Pretty much we now have a single setting test batch of data, now I have something to measure against on the next run.
Also need to measure the yield from this batch of pins.


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## butcher (Dec 5, 2010)

some copper in solution (not terrible), looks like maybe solder lead in filter. also looks like a hint of copper sulfate or carbonate in filter?


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## lazersteve (Dec 5, 2010)

The gray powder is normal, not sure what it is, but it's very common.

I have a long reply prepared to this thread, but it's on another computer. I'll post it later.

Steve


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## FrugalEE (Dec 6, 2010)

I've given this some more thought and realized that any attempt to duty cycle the current will almost certainly result in more heating than a steady current. I say this based on experience with power supply design. I'm talking about a simple a 60 Hz supply where you have a transformer driving a full wave rectifier followed by a large bank of capacitors. If your transformer is designed for good regulation with tight coupling from primary to secondary your transformer currents will be in short bursts of high current. This causes excessive losses (I squared R) in the copper wire and excess heating. In my case I had to meet a Military specification that the copper winding temperatures would not exceed 40 degree C rise and that is pretty tough to do. I remember an early attempt to reduce heating by beefing up the transformer actually back fired and got hotter than the smaller version. What we had to do was to specify an amount of leakage reactance to be designed into the transformer which was done by winding it in a way that reduced coupling from primary to secondary windings. That reduced the current peaks and spread the currrent out over a longer duty cycle and the transformer then ran a lot cooler.

Unless for some strange reason your fluid resistance is not constant during the duration of a pulse you will produce less heating if you use the longest possible duty cycle. Note that I am only talking about heating effect here and not what happens chemically.

Another unrelated thought was to weigh your pins before and after deplating to get some idea of how much metal you put into solution. Someone earlier suggested cementing out copper from a sample.

Hope this helps,

FrugalEE



FrugalEE


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## goldenchild (Dec 6, 2010)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> The power source that I use is a simple old and I mean old Dayton battery charger. 120 AMP max load, 6V Hi/Low, 12V Hi/Low, Boost. The container I did use held about 3/4 of a liter or solution and I ran it on 12V Low with just a hot and ground. It has a built in amp meter and when the load drops I know the material is finished. It will deplate a pentium pro gold top in around 1 min. This container set in another container the held an ice bath. If I remember right around 75 pentiums could be done with a round of solution. Very simple setup.



Barren. Thanks for the tip on the copper tubing for the other thread. I will try it tonight. What you wrote here makes me wonder. Is there a hard and fast rule of when to empty your cell? I have a 1 liter cell that I have already deplated 5 pounds of well plated jewelry and its still working. I have noticed that it efficiently deplates for a shorter amount of time each time I use it. Im guessing thats because of all the gold and base metals floating around. But then I eventually add fresh acid and it gets going again. I guess as long as it keeps working and as long as the gold doesnt reach the cathode you are fine. I have a video of the starting cell that I will post tonight. Nothing special but has some excellent music :lol:


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## adam_mizer (Dec 6, 2010)

Some changes of setup are due.
I have been in the garage with doors open for ventilations.
The wife came in and said she smelled some chemical in the air which for purposes of health I'm moving it all outside until the home made scrubber is devised. That may take me more time than I think to build a plastic encolsure and make the plastic ducting system and the water enclosure.
Outside seems the easiest for right now to complete the work that was started.

The auric chloride sat all night hopefully the chlorine gases of the mixture have diminished and I can do the SMB which leads me to devising a small vaccuum chamber to utilize my hvac pump.
This auric chloride is evident copper is present but not by doing a ammonia test on my wash which I would have liked to do but there is a slight green tint not very much and while washing the electrode water rinse and filtering it I viewed a nice heavenly light blue tint in the water.

Okay a couple of processes to go, brings me to: drop the gold but then wash it 2-3 times in luke-warm hcl I'm thinking to get the small amount of copper out.

I did happen to run 2 test batches last night of much larger pins, the pin size also allowed me to put 150 grams in for each batch.
1st batch at 14.5vdc, selected this voltage because I am guessing a 12v battery charger puts out more voltage to charge as an alternator would charge your battery in a vehicle system.
500hz was chosen at 5.1amp setting and the duty cycle of the 500hz set on automatic to maintain this 5.1amp current, well I'm going to forget this test fast as this caused the bath a very quick heating to run the single batch, time completed 17min. The CCPWM drops to actually 0.2a current on the display. Inspection of pins terrible as there was plating still left to be removed everywhere through-out this batch. Also note this is the first time I saw discolored or brown bubbles from the lead.

2nd batch 4khz at 6ampere, 10vdc, 16min run time 150grams large pins. No brown bubbles. Also all previous batches were done at 4khz with no brown bubbles or barely noticable. Temp rise was much slower, and the finished product was very good deplated pins unlike the previous batch. Duty started at 50% and rose to 100% as the current starts dropping before the batch is finished de-electroplating.

So far I have noticed that maintaining 4khz, voltage 10 or less, amperage 5-6 is giving good deplating results and keeps the heat down.

FrugalEE I can understand your heating issue but we are not talking about wire coils, we are talking about the effect of heat between the electrodes in an electrolyte. I have run and built hydrogen celles for 8 years and the last 3 spent very much of my spare time doing it and finally in the last year I started taking data measurements. Heating was a concern of mine since I started using PVC piping. Cell number, cell spacing, cell flow, CCPWM setting and voltage, all had an effect on the temperature curve. 
In this case the CCPWM slowed down the heating of the electrolyte issue enough to notice that the cell could be driven for much longer periods of time before you would have to cool it.
From my long experiences with cell control and design I can see that this single cell deplating acid bath is of simalar design. There is an ionic exchange in the hydrogen cell of the electrolye and the more you understand how this exchange takes effect with all the controlling issues you start to zone into the quality of gas produced. Its this quality in the gas that is basically realigning the electrons of the atoms of the H and O particles in their groups. 

The gray powder is interesting that maybe one day it will be figured out. It should be a metal residual salt wouldn't you think? Which one though!


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## goldenchild (Dec 6, 2010)

Here's the vid. I decided to take the music out as it could be distracting. Good but distracting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCro6V_RsTo&feature=player_profilepage[/youtube]


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## lazersteve (Dec 6, 2010)

Great video, thanks for the website plug also!

As promised here's the reply I typed up a few nights ago:



adam_mizer said:


> Yes thats it home made scrubber. A vacuum scrubber in my case.
> 
> I'm not experienced yet but by the looks of the material that was unplated it appears perfectly sound less the gold plating.
> Will inspect it and try to siphon it off later this evening.
> I'm curious to see what 610 grams of board edge pins, DB sockets, cable connectors etc... will produce in the end.



Adam,

The following comments are not meant to detract from what you are doing, I'm merely trying to give you a better understanding of what factors are important when using the cell verses which ones are more trivial. Please accept them in this light.

I admire your attention to detail as far as the temperature and electrical parameters of the stripping cell reaction is concerned, but frankly a few degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit and/or minor dc volts or amps variations of your cell will not go to drastically affect the final outcome. If it makes you feel better about getting the reaction 'just right', you can continuously monitor your cell temperature, amps, and volts parameters, but all of it will vary with each and every unique type of scrap you are running. 

Think of the gold plated part(s) you are stripping as another unknown (perhaps the biggest) and you will see where I'm coming from. In your quote above you mentioned a particular weight of 'board edge pins, DB sockets, cable connectors, etc...', but you do not specify the manufacturer, year of manufacture, application, base metal, etc. These factors all will affect the yields as well as the results of the observations you are charting, maybe even more so than the temperature, voltage, and amperage. In fact the physical characteristics of the gold plated part may be the biggest contributing factor to the variations you measure and for this reason your values will always be different for each and every unique type of scrap. 

In short the generic terms like cold, hot, and 12 v 10 A battery charger are more than accurate enough to get a cell operational and producing gold. If you need a more accurate assessment of the temperatures, then let me suggest these operating conditions for the hobbyist cell set up:

1. Wear goggles, protective gloves, and a good acid resistant apron. Start with your sulfuric acid at room temperature (20C). The sulfuric acid should be of 95% concentration or higher.

2. Use a standard 'manual' automotive charger with a built in analog amp meter (one with a moving needle) that is capable of delivering 12v DC @ 10 amps on a continuous basis. The automatic variety of chargers (with led bar graph amp meters) should not be used. The automatic types contain electronic circuits used to sense the battery condition and control the charging of batteries while protecting them and you from harm. These extra circuits don't 'play nice' (new technical term :lol: ) with the cell set up.

3. Attach a piece of lead to the negative lead of the charger and hang it from one side of your cell set up.

4. Attach the positive lead (copper alligator clip) of the charger to the part to be stripped, or to a copper basket arranged to hold smaller items in bulk. The size of your cell and consequently the basket size will limit the mass of small items you can strip in one run. Be sure the negative lead has an uninterrupted path to the items to be stripped. Imagine a line of sight (LOS) between the part(s) to be stripped and the negative lead. If this LOS is broken by the copper metal from the front edge of the basket, the basket will act as a shield (aka: farady shield) to the pins and slow the strip time and heat the acid. Once the gold is stripped, remove the part as soon as possible. 

I have noticed that the longer a stripped (ie: gold is all removed) part stays in the electrolyte with voltage applied, the more the cell will heat. The energy of the charger is no longer being used to strip gold, instead it is being conducted to the negative lead and generating heat very quickly once the gold is removed. In a *perfect world* we could calculate the gold yielded from a stripped part by the amount of time required to strip the part in the cell and recording the amount of amps used. In the real world the electrons are conducted along various side paths in addition to being used to strip the gold and we as humans don't remove the part at the exact moment all of the gold is stripped, so the real number of amps consumed is a sum of all of the losses, plus the amps required to strip the gold. 

5. Rinse the stripped part in water (or baking soda water) over a container sized as needed for your cell set up. I like to use a spray bottle of straight water, it's quick, conserves water, and the rinse water is always clean that touches the part(s). The rinse pot eventually accumulates a layer of black gold powder on the bottom after extended use followed by a settling period. This black powder is combined with the cell yields.

6. Dab the rinsed part onto a dry paper towel. I like paper towels because they can be burnt to recover any traces of gold in them. One paper towel goes a long way if folded properly and allowed to dry between cell runs. This step is very important to the life of your copper clips and basket. Be sure your clip/basket has most of the water removed from it before placing it back in the cell.

7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until the cell gets hot to the touch. If you are using a thermometer to determine when your cell is hot, stop when the cell reaches 90C. A cell gets hot for several reasons:

A. Normal stripping of gold.
B. Leaving stripped parts in the electrolyte with the power applied after they have been stripped.
C. Adding water to the cell. Either via air, intentionally, or unintentionally.
D. Your cell is too small for the batch sizes you are running. 
E. Shorting of the positive and negative electrodes.
F. Higher amperage flowing per second in a given volume of sulfuric acid.
G. Other factors

Notes: 

A. Diluted sulfuric acid, especially when 'hot' (ie > 60C) will eat copper (and many other metals) quickly. Dilution can occur via rinse water trapped on the surface of the anode lead or from absorption through the air.

B. If you rinse your copper clips or basket and do not remove the excess rinse water from the copper before adding it back into the sulfuric acid cell, you are in effect placing your copper into diluted sulfuric acid and will experience a much shorter life cycle for these items. Drying your leads/basket between 'dip and rinse' cycles will greatly extend the life of these parts.

C. Parts must be fully exposed to the sulfuric acid in order for them to strip. Sounds obvious, but a large mass of pins will mechanically shield one another from exposure to the sulfuric acid and the pins on the bottom and inside of the pile will not strip completely or at all. 

D. A cell is full and should be cleaned out when the sulfuric acid is saturated with black powder to the point where the powder short circuits the negative and positive leads of the cell when in normal operation. This shorting can occur on the bottom (most common) or on top of the electrolyte as floating blobs of gold and bubbles. Try to sink any floaters with a glass rod to prevent the build up of top floaters. Proper placement of the positive and negative leads can extend the time required between clean outs. The leads should be mounted so that they do not rest directly on the bottom of the cell. Let everything settle for 24 hours before you clean out the cell. You may find the sulfuric acid clears (straw colored to green brown) after the cell settles. This upper layer of acid can be carefully siphoned off for use in the next cell without any further treatment. The black sludge is treated as described in my Black Powder from the Cell post. 

You may want to clean out your cell sooner if you want to determine yield data for the scrap in question or you are out of material to process and want to store the cell.

E. The greater the flow of amps in a cell, the greater the number of gold plated parts the cell can strip in the same amount of time. This heats the cell faster as well. The larger the volume of acid in the cell the longer it takes to heat up.


I'm interested in you CCPWM results, but I'm going to predict it will take longer to strip the same parts than with pure DC. The off cycles do not supply the electrons that do the work of stripping the gold atoms off of the part(s). Less electrons in a given time equals less gold stripped in that time.

Steve


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## adam_mizer (Dec 6, 2010)

Great video Goldenchild, I really like the visual on the white bubbles and reaction real clean. 

Excellent description Steve particularly where you point out 90c as the high point temperature and here I am worrying about 85-90f huge difference, 90c is a 194degree's farenhiet.
So you say at greater than 60c the cell acid can eat copper pretty good. Thats very good to know as 60c is 140f and gives a large temp span for cooking a lot of material.
That changes everything and here I am spinning my wheels.
Last batch I did with regular charger and current and it works just fine.

At least I took notes and tried a variety of settings with a duty pulse and had a bit of fun learning a bit on the way.
Right now I'm ready to trash-can the duty test but one thing I trully believe I was able to keep the temperature down. It seemed 50-60% duty pulse and 5.0-5.5 ampere's current and less than 12volts worked the best to keep the temperature curve down, but it appears the stripping time took much longer. 

Now on my next batch after this one will be done on the straight charger.

Again I say "Steve excellent description", I bet many people were waiting to have such a good description of the cell and usage detail. It would be a very good idea for you to make that DVD.
I would like to ask one more thing:
I'm going to settle the gold powder out of the auric chloride but will have a tiny amount of copper to deal with. Guessing I will use HCl to remove this copper and to get a timely responce of the HCl it should be warmed up. Right now my ambient garage temp is in the mid 40's. Question is how far to warm the HCl in order for it not to eat the gold powder?
Wow another temperature detail. 

Thanks very much I just love those detailed posts you guys are great in my book.


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## goldenchild (Dec 6, 2010)

lazersteve said:


> Great video, thanks for the website plug also!
> Steve



Thanks  




adam_mizer said:


> Great video Goldenchild, I really like the visual on the white bubbles and reaction real clean.



Theres nothing like a fresh cell with pure white bubbles. I almost hate to get all that black sludge in there. Almost. :lol: 



adam_mizer said:


> I'm going to settle the gold powder out of the auric chloride but will have a tiny amount of copper to deal with. Guessing I will use HCl to remove this copper and to get a timely responce of the HCl it should be warmed up. Right now my ambient garage temp is in the mid 40's. Question is how far to warm the HCl in order for it not to eat the gold powder?



No need to worry about HCL dissolving the gold. It cant on its own. Heat the HCL as much as needed but try not to boil it. In a finely divided state it wont take much heat at all to get rid of the copper.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 6, 2010)

Thanks GC for the HCl info really needed it as it helps in understanding the temperatures which I worry about for some dumbfounded reason.

Anyways I don't know if I need worry about the copper but I will rinse in HCl regardless but for some reason the Auric Chloride I processed, took the powder out of it and the remainder has the light green tint still in it. Tested with stanous and its blank for gold.
I'm confounded, the beginner I am at the fact there is still a tint in the processed auric chloride. On top of that I added more SMB just to be sure, but notta thing happened.


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## lazersteve (Dec 6, 2010)

Looks like you got it all to me.

Lots of metals will give a light green tint, notably some valences of nickel, zinc, and iron.

You did very well from the looks of the gold powder.

Steve


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## goldenchild (Dec 7, 2010)

Yes. If this was your first processing of cell recovered gold with AR you will almost certainly not get a perfectly yellow gold chloride or end up with a crystal clear waste. I bet you would if you refined your resulting powders again :mrgreen:


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## adam_mizer (Dec 10, 2010)

Okay here are 2 products, not finished yet because I need to further process the powder if possible.
2nd auric chloride was washed/rinsed better than first time.
2nd auric chloride, dried powder on left.
1st run dry powder on right.
Now there are differences and I'm thinking the first run could take a warm acid bath. Does Warm/hot hcl remove some stuff maybe copper/tin/lead?

Thanks I appreciate your feedback.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 10, 2010)

A warm or hot acid bath will do better than a cold one.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 10, 2010)

Okay thanks Barren, on my third batch I did a hot HCl rinse this time and I'll see what color that is soon.

Looking at Steve's melt video his powder is like the one I have on the left with a little red tint.
Here'sthe funny thing the powder on the right although looks like maybe 1/2 the volume of the one on left is only 0.4 gram less in weight.
The powder on the right actually weighs more if it had the same volume.
On right was 1970's-90's mixed pins. On left was card edge foils.
Will see what color the rest of my pin stock will look like with the HCl hot/rinse.


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## adam_mizer (Dec 11, 2010)

Well here's my 3rd run and some summary for beginners.

First off let me say thank you to this forum and its members, without the help and instruction I couldn't get started to do this.
This is no easy task, safety and amount of carefull work with acids, chemicals, wash/rinse and filter. Then deal with wastes!

Here's a direct run down, I have posted types of pins although in my first pictures you did not see the large pins and tiny spring and contact pin. The test pins were gorgeous from pretty large to very small. Even 1/2LB of tiny gold springs and counter sink pin very small beutifully plated like looking at very bright pure yellow/gold. The pins totalled approximately 4LB's material.
The card edge fingers were cut very tight meaning to the actual edge of gold finger, no waste left behind and totalled 20oz's of material.

1st run heavily filtered/washed with distilled several several times.
2nd run edge fingers filtered/washed many times.
3rd run filtered/washed in HOT HCl, the black powder and after dropping, hot HCl on the gold powder. This is the color I believe I should try to achieve. Almost pure as I have read here in the forum of Ultra Pure Purity methods.
The Hot HCl wash/rinse is very good as it shows the differences in my powder picture, from water rinse to acid rinse.

I may have just a little not amounting to much black powders in filters saved.
4LB's nice pins = approximately 9grams gold.
20oz's edge fingers = less than 3.2grams gold after I wash/rinse in HCl.

All I can say is its an interesting experience and a fun addicting hobby, learning and using the methods of LazerSteve. I hope to learn more about these and other processes.
The guy's here are great and the help is phenominal.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 11, 2010)

I might suggest breaking up the clumps if there are any when you are doing your cleaning. Looking nice tho.


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## goldenchild (Dec 11, 2010)

I see a nice 12 gram button in your future. 8)


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## adam_mizer (Dec 15, 2010)

Cleaned up that one red-tinted powder batch just a little with hot HCl and it was added to the 1st semi-dark batch. 
Still a little bit dark-tint though but better as red-tint is reduced and weight reduced 0.2gm.
Cleaned up some left overs from that run and got 0.4gm added in so all is working in the plus.

Also have noticed working the left overs just how much nickel there is in this stuff. It comes out easily and its got to be that white/gray powder residual. 

Working on some of my scrap materials, back to doing the AP method.
There's a batch that sat in there for several days plus using old AP and some fresh. Looks like gallon and half now.
Appears very dark now and I have cleaned the batch out and washed off the small cards in seperate container and they still need to sit in the AP to finish up.
Have been adding into the bucket odd cards a couple cpu's and some edge fingers as I go along.
While cleaning I have noticed some full tracings have come off the old scopes and communication test cards but do still have some copper attached to the foils, also many little cards I have the gold plate has been coming off and its funny that some of the copper is still attached to the small card. (Somehow I think some of this is due to the variations of nickel plate). 
I figure the AP needs freshening as its filling with copper, its effects have slowed down consideraby.

You guys have stated using a air bubbler device for freshening up.
Trying to use stuff I have here at my disposal, I have come up with a small ozone pump. The kind they would use on a small jacuzzi tub.
I'm wondering what would be the effect on the AP using the ozone pump as it introduces o3 into the mix.

Anybody know if the reaction of AP and o3 bubbling in would be okay?


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## lazersteve (Dec 15, 2010)

Ozone (O3) is a very powerful oxidizer and will surely put some of your gold in solution. Oxygen (O2) is a better choice. I've posted links to several chemical variations of the acid peroxide (copper chloride etchant) reaction. 

Here's a link with a reference:

Acid Peroxide and Ozone

and one on copper chloride etchant replenishing:

Replenish Acid Peroxide


Steve


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## adam_mizer (Dec 16, 2010)

Your document "copper chloride etchant" at your site "http://goldrecovery.us/" is very informative for the AP process. Just what the doctor ordered!

*Can't believe I didn't read it until now.* 
But as a begginer there is very much material to read and only a little of it needed to perform the goal of understanding those neccessary processes needed to work the material I have acquired. The choice e-scrap for the "LazerSteve methods" how about that.

I'll have to read all those doc's/pdf's you posted Steve in due time.
Thanks for all that stuff, its amazing what starts sticking in my mind as I am understanding the process.
I didn't take chemistry in school so I have a very hard time grasping at the way it works when a chemical is made into a group of chemicals.
Is there a basic document how this joins together the molecular formulas so a layman could understand?


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## lazersteve (Dec 16, 2010)

Adam,

Unfortunately 'layman's chemistry' is sort of an oxymoron as chemistry has many specialized terms, mathematics, and shorthand to learn, which goes beyond most laymen. Hokes book is the closest thing to a layman's guide to refining that you will find. Chemistry is one of those things that takes time and repetition to learn, but once the light goes off, things become very clear. Math is also a big part of chemistry, this is one of the biggest hurdles people have with learning chemistry, linking the numbers to the symbols.

As you are starting to realize, the chemical processes for gold are basically all the same, it's just a matter of deciding what the best process is for your type of gold scrap.

I feel the key to processing any e-scrap is to know the physical qualities of the scrap you are dealing with. Once you know the composition of your scrap, you can quickly choose the right chemicals and reaction conditions to dissolve the values or base metals.

Steve


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