# I accidentally added baking soda to my aqua regia solution



## cryptopsyhead (May 31, 2015)

I accidentally added baking soda to my aqua regia solution that has dissolved gold in it. I can't use SMB to participate it out because, if I'm right, baking soda neutralizes HCL and HCL is needed to interact with the participant. Is it possible to just add HCL to the neutralized solution and then get the gold to participate out with SMB, or should I simply start over by cementing with copper?

Edit: And just so you're aware, I searched the forum and found a similar problem as this (http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldr...22066&p=229742&hilit=baking+soda+help#p229742). Some of it was (and will be) useful, but it didn't have an answer for this specific question.

Thanks for any help.


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## MrMylar (May 31, 2015)

The best answer to this problem is to at least say "study".

Welcome to the forum!

You, along with many new members that post their first question(s) that I've seen since being on this forum is to ask for an answer to a mess you've created without knowing what you're doing. It's that obvious. How could you "accidentally" add baking soda to the precipitation of chemicals that can kill you instantly?

Your best bet is to put everything to the side and learn what you're doing and keep abreast on this forum. Your gold is NOT wasted, nor have it been lost.... but I can tell you this much, you've made an alkaline mess. Whatever you've learned, put it to the side and disregard ALL of it until you understand what is taught here, and you've read "Hoke's book. It's in the signature of some of the forum members and it WILL TEACH YOU! how to recover from your own mess you made.

DO NOT EXPECT a 100% way from anyone here to tell you what you should or shouldn't do unless you can prove that you've shown that you can at least do some basic steps. Trust me on this. I'm not being rude or crude to you, but I know how things work here and I know the dangers that you're approaching by what you're doing.

Just tonight I posted a situation about some ore I'm trying to refine and I was told some good advice, and that advise was simply to put it all away until I understand what EXACTLY what I'm dealing with. This applies to you too.

This forum WILL make you an expert if you're determined to proceed with the known and recommended ways of refining. Learn, and from there on, you'll be able to do,.. and then on, you can be able to teach from what you've learned.

Hope this helps!


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## MrMylar (May 31, 2015)

I meant to tell you that "a specific solution" requires "specifics" of the the problem. You never mentioned what you're refining or what amount of it or anything useful to help anyone willing and wanting to help you. I then noticed that the link you were referring to was a reply that I have made to another member.

The same applies to you too. 
*
1)*. Did you label/ your powders? If you did, I will definitely say "NO" to baking soda.
*2)*. From the mistake you said you made, what did you do to correct it?
*3)*. Have you read Hoke's book? If not, you should. It's full of information to teach you refining. Soon you'll be saying "Oh yeah, now that makes sense".
*4)*. Have you put your material away while you're looking for the solution to fix the problem?

Do all of the above and you'll be glad you did. Some of the basic things I now know, I thought were too complicated until I read and read and read and read..... and then I did and read and did and read and did and read. Like they say... "Practice Makes Perfect". You're no different. You can perfect this... just practice/experiment using "Hoke's book" AND definitely reading the threads on this forum. This is YOUR foundation on refining. That's right. Right here on THIS forum. 

Hope this helps!


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## jason_recliner (May 31, 2015)

I can see what you've done. You've probably confused sodium bicarbonate with sodium bi-something-else.
The spelling of chemicals is absolutely critical, to the letter. You will need sodium metabisulfite (not ...sulfate) as a "precipitant".

While I would probably lean towards cementing it with copper, the answer will depend on your situation.
How much AR do you have? (And how much nitric vs how much HCl?)
How much gold is in it?
How much sodium bicarbonate did you put in it?

You will also ultimately need stannous chloride, to determine when you have removed all gold from solution.


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## cryptopsyhead (May 31, 2015)

Thanks for the replies.

MrMylar, thank you for the suggestions. It's ironic (though not surprising), because I did read Hoke's book and spent a while lurking these forums, but made a mistake like this. I wasn't very clear on my first post, so I would like to do a better job explaining things this time. When I said I accidentally added baking soda, I meant I added it on purpose but from lack of knowledge. According to http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Discuss:I...n_aqua_regia_how_can_you_separate_it_back_out, baking soda can be used instead of urea to neutralize the aqua regia before participating the gold, but this is incorrect and I trusted it without confirmation. As you've pointed out in another thread, urea and anything else like it doesn't have to be used; there's alternative methods. This is something I will be studying a lot more of before trying a new batch. Luckily, I used a small amount of gold in case things went wrong.

In response to Jason, I used acid peroxide to separate gold from 50 computer memory chips (about 1 gram or less of gold). After letting it sit, I filtered/decanted & washed the gold. I added the gold to a 1:3 ratio of nitric acid to hydrochloric acid, measuring to 30ml and 90ml respectively (I understand this was a lot more than it should've been). The aqua regia solution quickly turned a nice yellow color. I filtered it, diluted it with water (adding as much water as there was chemicals), and added the baking soda until there was no longer a reaction. I then used SMB to participate it, at which point it turned a clear color and fizzled, but nothing else happened. I realized something went wrong and knew it had to be the baking soda. At it currently stands, the liquid turned back into a yellow color.


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## g_axelsson (May 31, 2015)

cryptopsyhead said:


> participate


It's called precipitate!

Göran


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## jason_recliner (May 31, 2015)

> I understand this was a lot more than it should've been


Something of an understatement.

The baking soda is the least of your problems. When you read Hoke's book, there was a part where she mentioned how 4 oz HCl and 1 oz nitric would dissolve an ounce of gold. Even then you would not add it all at once. But you have 1 gram. And around 30 times too much acid.

I expect your gold precipitated perfectly and the solution went clear. Then, in a flash, it was redissolved by acid.
Read up on excess nitric, amongst others. It's been covered here many times before. Hoke also discusses it a page or two further on.



> At it currently stands, the liquid turned back into a yellow color.


I'd suggest you put it away for now and just read. Don't seal it tightly.


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## MrMylar (May 31, 2015)

What I would do as I'm putting away my solution until I fully understand is take for example.. 100mL of solution and pour it all into a 500mL+ beaker and add "distilled water" to it. 

All of your gold is there and it's not going nowhere. Always use a larger container than what you believe you need. That theory has and IS my best friend.

Some people say to rinse some solution 5+6 times, where I'll just put my washable powders in a larger beaker and just add more water and it takes me maybe 2-4 times to rinse.

*DO NOT* take this as "cast in stone information", but when you dilute your solution 3X +, you'll reduce the amount of times you have to rinse. Do a pH test on the rinse water and you should get a 7 all the time. I do.... literally, all the time. I found out through my own experiences that just adding enough water to cover the powder you're trying to rinse off will take many, many rinses to get a pH level of 7. You can easily avoid all the rinses by pouring the washable powder into a larger beaker and simply fill it up at least 2 times. You take more but it surely won't be 4 - 6 times. Make sure at least your last rinse is with "boiling distilled water"/ Boiling distilled water will help you out with any acid issues. One speck of chlorine in your water and then you'll possibly and most likely will dissolve some of the gold you're trying to recover.

Tap water is a money saver and it works all the time, but I realized that if I'm trying to recover the gold, do NOT use nitric acid AND tap water. My tap water is a 7ph, straight out of the pipe, but it smells of chlorine when run on a high level, hot or cold. You can smell the chlorine. I understand what is being taught here and it's soaking it bit by bit. *One drop of chlorine and nitric and you can dissolve some of your gold.*

MrMylar


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## jason_recliner (May 31, 2015)

The gold's already dissolved. A little chlorine will not really make it a lot worse. In this case it's already diluted 50% and I would just put that away as is.

Let's not confuse the issue with powder washing techniques just yet. Nitric and water has no place in this current scenario.


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## MrMylar (May 31, 2015)

jason_recliner said:


> The gold's already dissolved. A little chlorine will not really make it a lot worse. In this case it's already diluted 50% and I would just put that away as is.
> 
> Let's not confuse the issue with powder washing techniques just yet. Nitric and water has no place in this current scenario.


I'm not trying to confuse him at all. I thought it was some useful information that can be used in the future.


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## cryptopsyhead (May 31, 2015)

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm going to heed all of the advice, set it aside and study more. I've ordered a chemistry book, An Introduction to Precious Metals, and going through Hoke's book again. I felt things were going well until the very end, but as Jason mentioned, I used 30 times the amount of nitric acid needed and that's unacceptable. I'll look more into what Mylar suggested as an experiment, but in the meantime I'm going to practice extracting silver to get a better grip of things (I have a bunch of mylar sheets from keyboards, which is comprised of plastic with silver linings. So far, my idea is to shred the sheets, then soak them in a nitric acid solution until the silver is removed. I'd like to use copper to get the silver back, but I'll see if something else works better). 

Once I've gained a little more experience, and studied more, I'll come back to this and see if I can fix it. Next time around, I think I'll use a sand-bath (as seen in Hoke's book) to evaporate any excess nitric acid from the aqua regia solution. Ideally I'd like to add the perfect amount so that evaporation won't be needed, but this seems to be an acquired skill from trial-and-error.


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## MrMylar (May 31, 2015)

If you're going to work with mylars then pay close attention to this...

*1)* Nitric acid will NOT dissolve all the silver from ALL keyboard mylars. The carbon on them WILL block the nitric acid from dissolving the silver underneath them. That is a* fact*.

*2)* Shredding the mylars will make more work for you and it do not change the final result than placing them in solution "whole". I don't even suggest nor recommend cutting them in half. Do them whole, but cut off the tabs first.

*3)* Mylars that have the tabs on them (blue, green, yellow, etc,.) no matter what you do the nitric acid will NOT get to that silver.* Fact*.

*4)* Mylars that are green or even mylars that have black around certain portions of the mylars will NOT dissolve using nitric acid.* Fact*.

If you have mixed mylars, then nitric acid will not be the best way to do them in the beginning. You can use nitric acid, but you must "remove" all the silver and carbon on the mylars first, then onto the nitric.

MrMylar


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## kurtak (Jun 1, 2015)

cryptopsyhead

First of all - you clearly have "A LOT" to learn about the recovery & refining of PMs before you start attempting to actually do it - that means you need to start by doing a great deal of reading & research --- if I were you I would put away any notion of preforming any kind of processing for at least a couple of months & spend any & all your free time reading & researching the information about processing that is available here on the forum to get a basic grip on what & how things are done

Doing so will save you making a lot of stupid mistakes & then asking us a lot of stupid questions to help fix those mistakes - mistakes that can be avoided by doing some reading & research first

I suggest you start here :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=21374

And here :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=22351

As far as recovering your gold from your current mistake - you can do that by a process called cementing - put a piece of "heavy" copper (like copper pipe or bus bar or "large" piece of wire) in your gold solution - the copper will use up your free nitric & then "cement" out you gold --- do a search using cement &/or cementing to get more details on the process

Concerning the recovery of silver from mylars - as MrMylar said - DO NOT USE NITRIC - the process is done with NaOH (sodium hydroxide) & H2O2 (peroxide)

Here is a link to a thread that discusses it "in part" :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=22025&hilit=mylar

So as you can see just from your gold mistake & your almost mylar mistake - you have "A LOT" to learn - before you start doing any processing

Kurt


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## rickbb (Jun 3, 2015)

The key thing about keyboard mylars is that you are dealing with dried silk screened INK that has some silver in it. 

You can't dissolve the silver directly with nitric, you have to separate the silver bearing ink from the mylar first, then deal with separating the silver from the ink.


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## Casper (Sep 7, 2019)

MrMylar said:


> The best answer to this problem is to at least say "study".
> 
> Welcome to the forum!
> 
> ...



I'm glad everyone on here just woke up one day and bam u know how yo mix chems. I was always told ask questions but then someone basically gets yelled at because he is new . Not yo talk to anyone on here till they read a book really . Could just said no baking soda it netrelizies solution bit no u say dont talk read a book


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## anachronism (Sep 7, 2019)

Casper said:


> I'm glad everyone on here just woke up one day and bam u know how yo mix chems. I was always told ask questions but then someone basically gets yelled at because he is new . Not yo talk to anyone on here till they read a book really . Could just said no baking soda it netrelizies solution bit no u say dont talk read a book



Hi Caspar. Thanks for the contribution to our forum. Sadly I'm struggling to understand what you said so the message is somewhat lost. 

Jon


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## butcher (Sep 7, 2019)

Casper said:


> I'm glad everyone on here just woke up one day and bam u know how yo mix chemicals. I was always told ask questions but then someone basically gets yelled at because he is new. Not yo talk to anyone on here till they read a book really. Could just say no baking soda it neutralizes solution bit no u say don't talk read a book



Casper, 
Many like you come here thinking you can just wake up one morning and get gold from mixing chemicals randomly or from asking a few questions.
Or they think they can learn from watching a video, and mix a bunch of dangerous chemicals and toxic metals and then ask a question to get their gold back with no clue of where to dump the toxic waste.
They also get angry when the answers to the questions are not what they wish to hear.

Why is it, there so many books written on these subjects, if it was as easy as just asking a question or two and you could become a professional mining engineer, or metallurgical chemist or gold refiner if it was that simple they would not need books to explain it.


Well, I say they need to study if they wish to learn chemistry, or the processes of refining and recovering gold. There is no way I could help them understand what they need from answering a question or two.

Why ask a question on a forum, if you do not want to read? Are you not planning on reading the answer to your questions and learning from it? what is the difference if the answers are found in a book?
Where the book can explain it much better in more details...
Where you can learn more than that baking soda changes the pH or that it can form oxides and hydroxides with the metal cations in solution, or that it would not work well to precipitate gold from an ionic soup of metals...

The fact is you would never learn this from asking uneducated questions on a forum, and then crying when the answers are not what you wish to hear, os spoken in a way you would understand.
It would not matter how many questions you asked, without you doing your own study on the subject, they could not be answered in a way that would help you.

Everyone here is willing to answer questions, and to help you get started learning these skills, No one said do not talk or ask questions, The do say to read and study if you wish to learn, and they will also help you when you have a questions and need help with YOUR study of this art and science...

If you wish to learn we can help.
If you wish to be led by the hand down into a rabbit hole, well then this is not the forum you are looking for.

Study and read and ask questions and then also share what you learn to help others.


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## FrugalRefiner (Sep 7, 2019)

Casper said:


> I'm glad everyone on here just woke up one day and bam u know how yo mix chems. I was always told ask questions but then someone basically gets yelled at because he is new . Not yo talk to anyone on here till they read a book really . Could just said no baking soda it netrelizies solution bit no u say dont talk read a book



Hello Casper. I see you just joined, you found a four year old thread, quoted a member who was banned years ago, complained about what he posted, and filled your own post with miss-spellings and text lingo.

I didn't just wake up one day and know how to refine. I've spent years studying, including reading the book in my signature line at least a half dozen times. Yes, I recommend all new members read it. I also recommend they lose the attitude if they want help.

Dave


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