# Treating the Gold Ore with Aqua regia



## Abdu (Feb 4, 2013)

Hi all ,

Hope you all doin' great ! This is my first post on the forum.

Do you think that it's viable to use Aqua regia on the crushed Ore to melt the Micron Gold ? Then recover it by using SMB method.


Thanks for enlighening me

Abdus


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## jeneje (Feb 4, 2013)

Hello and welcome,

First i like to say AR does not melt gold, it disolves gold. I have found it hard to recover Micron gold form ore. Is it possible yes - cost effective NO not on a small scale. 

You may want to have an assay done on the ore to find out what you have and see if it will be worth presueing. How much do you have? What kind of equipment do you have to mill it?

Ken


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## Abdu (Feb 4, 2013)

Hello dear Ken !

Thank you for the reply 

I am sorry for misusing the right word  and thanx for correcting me . I will bear in mind that AR dissolves not melt Gold.

I haven't purchased any special machine for grinding the Ore; however, i only use the old fashioned way to grind it 

The Ore i found is on Quartz Vein and is Dark Green. It looks like the one they are mining in California. I just happened to run into a sample of that on the net.

I thought at the beginning that it is mixed with Copper ! However the green dark substance isn't Copper at all ! Nitric acid doesn't react with it at all !

Any additional information is much appreciated 

Tks

Abdu


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## jeneje (Feb 4, 2013)

Abdu said:


> Hello dear Ken !
> 
> Thank you for the reply
> 
> ...


Hello Abdu, 

I don't know much about the dark green substance, the expert on the site is Richard the rock man, maybe he will see the post and chime in on what you may have. 

When i tryed to recover the micron gold i used a ballmill with ceramic media and it ground the quarts good. What i found was it is better to do a wet grind, a dry grind will create dust and the gold will float out when you open your mill.

Is the quarts white or yellow? Gold is found in both but i think white has a better chance to have gold,

Ken


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## Abdu (Feb 4, 2013)

Hey Ken !


Thanx for the advice about the Mill ! Definitely, i will get the wet mill instead of the dry. And waiting impatientely on the Expert of Rocks to intervene.

Yeah ! The quartz is White - I could notice some gold grains when putting on water  ! But still a chance the Ore is mixed with Mica.

Tks 
Abdu


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## butcher (Feb 6, 2013)

Will this gold smash with the tip if a knife or hammer, or does it just crush apart?


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## crip53 (Mar 2, 2013)

Hi there....

Your green substance is most likley Serpentine. A shiny, green and blue rock found throughout California, was named the official State Rock in 1965. It contains the state's principal deposits of chromite, magnesite, and cinnabar.

It is also found in and around most any gold deposit in California. The shades of green can be from almost completely pale to dark.

Hope this helps :idea:


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## butcher (Mar 3, 2013)

crip53,
How have you been, I haven't seen you around for a while, we have whole mountains of serpentine up here, but rarely do I see quartz mixed in the serpentine, usually I see the quartz more with the iron based ores, although I have seen quartz in shale rock, and of course there are several types of quartz, although both of these are good places to look for gold

I have never seen quartz and serpentine together in the same rock, although it may occur but I have not seen it.

Serpentine will have a greasy or waxy look to it, it is a good source for asbestos, another good reason for wet grinding. Serpentine can be carved with a pocketknife it is soft, sometimes brittle, it can be broken or crushed much easier than quartz can be where, quartz is quite hard.

An ore may be colored green from other things besides copper.
Just because the nitric acid did not dissolve the green part of the ore when treated with nitric does not mean it is, or is not, a copper based ore, the copper minerals in ore will not react to acids the same way a metal like copper would react with acid, 

An ore may be treated with an acid, and the acid may not have much reaction upon the rock, this same ore if powdered and given an oxidizing roast may then leach in that same acid and then react much easier in the acid and then you may see copper being leached where it may not have reacted with the untreated ore.

Rocks can be a complicated mixture of chemical and metal compounds.


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## Nikademeus (Mar 28, 2013)

What type of reaction is expected when a pyritic material is introduced to Nitric?


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## butcher (Apr 4, 2013)

I would grind and roast the ore and concentrate it before treating with any acid or leach.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=nitricacid+treatment++of++sulfide+ore+pyrite&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=nitricacid+treatment+of+sulfide+ore+pyrite&sc=0-21&sp=-1&sk=


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