# Home built centrifuge - gold concenrates from IC's



## rusty

Centrifuges used to recover finely divided precious metals from ore circuits have been in existence for years, the one I'm working on will be similar in size to the seven inch Super Bowel shown below the wood pattern I'm working on.

Once the wood pattern is completed my bowel will be cast in aluminum then machined to fine tune the bowel, centrifuges have a great reputation for being able to recover the finest particle of gold from milled or ore. in my case the centrifuge will be used to recover precious metals from incinerated IC's.

The larger pieces of copper and such are screened from the ash with only the fine power left behind being feed into the centrifuge as a slurry, the lighter material gets flung over the top of the bowel while the heavier precious metals become entrapped in the groves located near the upper zone.

Centrifuges are quite, use less water are much more efficient than a shaking table which have more moving parts.


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## rusty

Todays progress, the final profile inside and out completed successfully, gave it a coat of linseed oil then some more sanding the pattern for the centrifuge bowel is done ready for casting.

I may have to order a larger crucible to hold the required volume of metal to fill this mold cavity.

The finished aluminum casting will have the required groves machined into it.


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## butcher

That is going to be to pretty to put mud in.


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## rusty

butcher said:


> That is going to be to pretty to put mud in.



Thanks butcher, my small crucible and lack of hobby funds may delay the foundry part of this project.

This evening glued up more wood for another style of centrifuge, this one will be used to polish my waste oil.


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## Palladium

I love watching his ingenuity.


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## rusty

The gold centrifuge I've posted a picture above is worth an astounding $8820.00 Canadian dollars, is reputed to recover down to 20 microns. The company that sells the machine above also have another 12 inch model that will pull down to 5 microns which is smaller than a human red blood cell.


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## skippy

For anybody who wasn't aware, a centrifuge when it fails can be as destructive as a bomb. They have tremendous energy when they get up to speed.


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## rusty

skippy said:


> For anybody who wasn't aware, a centrifuge when it fails can be as destructive as a bomb. They have tremendous energy when they get up to speed.



For anyone attempting to build a centrifuge they should have a good grasp on kinetic energy and mass.

I'm actually surprised they they use a poly bowel on the gold concentrator. must use some sort of backing to support the plastic.

Once had a Yamaha 650 cruising 120 mph when i came into rain and oil slicked highway i can say for a fact you could not have laid that bike over. The energy in the wheels acting like huge gyros kept the bike upright.


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## rusty

The waste oil centrifuge pattern is taking shape.


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## Jimmy

I pour aluminum all the time so if you need it poured, let me know.


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## rusty

Jimmy said:


> I pour aluminum all the time so if you need it poured, let me know.



Thanks for the offer Jimmy, this is a job i prefer to do in house. I use Petrobond which gives a superior surface finish, a fine grain aluminum is required, then I use a commercial degassing tablet.

Any castings showing porosity during the machining phase will be discarded. 

I do not think it practical to source this job out especially with the quality control I'm exercising with this project.


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## Jimmy

No problem. 
I would however recomend Hydroperm plaster over the Petrobond. It is only about $1.00 per pound and will give you a much more superior finish and much less inclusions than Petrobond.
:lol:


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## rusty

Jimmy said:


> No problem.
> I would however recomend Hydroperm plaster over the Petrobond. It is only about $1.00 per pound and will give you a much more superior finish and much less inclusions than Petrobond.
> :lol:



If you getting inclusions in your castings using Petrobond your doing something drastically wrong. 

The majority of my projects are built on impulse but this will only take you so far with out research, having the right data to work with helps. With what I've learned these past weeks I'm confident that I could now build a large 40 inch centrifuge and not have it disintegrate into pieces.

Because my research tells me a drum that size would turn so slow to generate the required G-Force if you put a chalk mark on it you could count the revolutions, well not quit.

Building a centrifuge that successfully concentrates values is akin to refining precious metals, in the latter you have Hokes and the many tutors willing to assist when a problem arises.

It disappoints me to know how many millions of downloads there have been for Hokes book and how few have actually read the book.

I choose not to participate in a forum contest related to building your own equipment, in fact I do not know even if we have a winner. 

Perhaps I should consider my centrifuge my entry.

On a side not Petrobond will no longer be available the North American mines have exhausted their supply of Olivine.


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## Jimmy

Ive owned a foundry and have operated it for 30 years. Dont do too much commercial work these days thou. 
Cant remember ever using ovaline sand for non ferous work.
Usually I would use alumina sands if I was worried about expansion. And you only need to worry about expansion on thin sections that are created in some types of cores. A thick casting such as that part you are making has no problem with heat buildup. Any potential over heat condition will cause a lot of problems with the oil binder before the thermal expansion of the sand comes into play.
Give the hydroperm a try. No erosion problems as you will have with the petrobond and no thermal expansion problems at all up to 2000F. You will be well below that.
Takes detail too quite well.


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## rusty

Jimmy said:


> Ive owned a foundry and have operated it for 30 years. Dont do too much commercial work these days thou.
> Cant remember ever using ovaline sand for non ferous work.
> Usually I would use alumina sands if I was worried about expansion. And you only need to worry about expansion on thin sections that are created in some types of cores. A thick casting such as that part you are making has no problem with heat buildup. Any potential over heat condition will cause a lot of problems with the oil binder before the thermal expansion of the sand comes into play.
> Give the hydroperm a try. No erosion problems as you will have with the petrobond and no thermal expansion problems at all up to 2000F. You will be well below that.
> Takes detail too quite well.



I apologize - I had no right to jump on you. 

If your offer had been closer to home it would have been a pleasure working with you, I could perhaps have learned something new.

I'm capable of doing this small job, as you say the casting is thick enough so there should not be any thermo tearing on cooling.


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## rusty

Harold I need some advice, I've never worked with plastic before.

I purchased this a few years back, forgot what type of plastic it is, I can tell you when you try to pull the stringers away they're elastic and it machines reasonably well.

On the small end facing the tail stock, when the bowel is completed this is the end that will mount onto the motor shaft. Something in my head is telling me that I should bore this hole larger then install an insert with the hole reamed out to fit the motor shaft. What is your take on this idea.

The inset would be held in place with roll pins, or flanged on the bottom then secured with screws , drill a slightly larger hole to access the set screw located on the insert which also would have a key way broached in, the maximum RPM is 1500 or slower.

Ok, now I'm thinking that the flange on that metal insert should come from the inside of the bowel with a washer on the bottom side with countersunk bolts topside going straight through


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## Harold_V

rusty said:


> Harold I need some advice, I've never worked with plastic before.
> 
> I purchased this a few years back, forgot what type of plastic it is, I can tell you when you try to pull the stringers away they're elastic and it machines reasonably well.


Looks like it could be polyethylene. Definitely not Delrin, Teflon or Nylon. Most likely has a bit of a waxy smell when being machined, eh?



> On the small end facing the tail stock, when the bowel is completed this is the end that will mount onto the motor shaft. Something in my head is telling me that I should bore this hole larger then install an insert with the hole reamed out to fit the motor shaft. What is your take on this idea.


If you have means to install the insert so it is reliable, I agree. 



> The inset would be held in place with roll pins, or flanged on the bottom then secured with screws , drill a slightly larger hole to access the set screw located on the insert which also would have a key way broached in, the maximum RPM is 1500 or slower.
> 
> Ok, now I'm thinking that the flange on that metal insert should come from the inside of the bowel with a washer on the bottom side with countersunk bolts topside going straight through


I was thinking something on the order of flanges as well. I'd consider a large nut, with enough inside diameter to permit the extension portion to be large enough to accept the required bore and keyway for the motor shaft. Sort of like a flange assembly for mounting grinding wheels. 

Keeping things concentric is going to be a bit of an issue unless you hold sizes quite close. You may have to balance the entire assembly when it's completed. Castings are notorious for not being homogenous, so it could have a heavy side, even if it's machined on all surfaces, and is concentric. 

I most likely would have recommended the bowl be made from 7075-T6 instead of a casting. Much more uniform, and of greater tensile strength. The strength may not be an issue, depending on the velocity of the bowl in operation. 

Like to hear how it turns out. I rarely get on the board these days, so please send me an email when you post, directing me to your comments. 

Jimmy, 
Wish you were near my location. I'm keen on learning more about foundry work. I intend to pour ductile iron in the future. While I never had enough interest to make the foundry my way of making a living, it has held my attention since I was a young lad---used to hang out at a couple foundries. I enjoyed all aspects, from watching cores being made to ramming and pouring molds. 

Harold


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## rusty

Harold_V said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> Harold I need some advice, I've never worked with plastic before.
> 
> I purchased this a few years back, forgot what type of plastic it is, I can tell you when you try to pull the stringers away they're elastic and it machines reasonably well.
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like it could be polyethylene. Definitely not Delrin, Teflon or Nylon. Most likely has a bit of a waxy smell when being machined, eh?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the small end facing the tail stock, when the bowel is completed this is the end that will mount onto the motor shaft. Something in my head is telling me that I should bore this hole larger then install an insert with the hole reamed out to fit the motor shaft. What is your take on this idea.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> If you have means to install the insert so it is reliable, I agree.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The inset would be held in place with roll pins, or flanged on the bottom then secured with screws , drill a slightly larger hole to access the set screw located on the insert which also would have a key way broached in, the maximum RPM is 1500 or slower.
> 
> Ok, now I'm thinking that the flange on that metal insert should come from the inside of the bowel with a washer on the bottom side with countersunk bolts topside going straight through
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I was thinking something on the order of flanges as well. I'd consider a large nut, with enough inside diameter to permit the extension portion to be large enough to accept the required bore and keyway for the motor shaft. Sort of like a flange assembly for mounting grinding wheels.
> 
> Keeping things concentric is going to be a bit of an issue unless you hold sizes quite close. You may have to balance the entire assembly when it's completed. Castings are notorious for not being homogenous, so it could have a heavy side, even if it's machined on all surfaces, and is concentric.
> 
> I most likely would have recommended the bowl be made from 7075-T6 instead of a casting. Much more uniform, and of greater tensile strength. The strength may not be an issue, depending on the velocity of the bowl in operation.
> 
> Like to hear how it turns out. I rarely get on the board these days, so please send me an email when you post, directing me to your comments.
> 
> Jimmy,
> Wish you were near my location. I'm keen on learning more about foundry work. I intend to pour ductile iron in the future. While I never had enough interest to make the foundry my way of making a living, it has held my attention since I was a young lad---used to hang out at a couple foundries. I enjoyed all aspects, from watching cores being made to ramming and pouring molds.
> 
> Harold
Click to expand...


Yes it has a waxy smell, you could make miles of fishing line, the darn stuff comes off in one long continuous string and tough to break.

For simplicity I'll go with the flanged insert inside with washer machined to fit below then run some bolts through.

So with the 7075-T6 aluminum this would be billet.

My neighbor has a few machine shops scattered around the globe, next visit I'll ask if he has a dynamic balancing machine.

On the larger centrifuges they roll the iron then weld everything together, but then the larger drum do not turn near as fast as this 7 inches.

Thanks for dropping by Harold.


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## Harold_V

rusty said:


> So with the 7075-T6 aluminum this would be billet.


That's what they like to call it, but it's just bar stock. The term billet is well overused these days. Sort of a "catch phrase". It's a legal term--most everything comes from a billet--but is further processed to forms. Round bar, rectangular bar, square bar, etc.. You get the idea. 



> My neighbor has a few machine shops scattered around the globe, next visit I'll ask if he has a dynamic balancing machine.


Certainly worth asking. You might even find it runs fine without balancing---you never know. Velocity is king, here. The faster it runs, the worse it will be. 

Looks like an interesting project. 



> Thanks for dropping by Harold.



Thanks for the invite. Nice to see something different. 

Harold


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## rusty

Some of the larger machine shops and ship yards must have inventory worth more than Fort Knox, I priced out 1 ft x 8" diameter 7075-T6 aluminum - $200.00 a ft. before tax.

I think Harold is right the plastic i have is Polyethylene  same stuff they're manufacturing the new concentrator bowels from. I hope that it works satisfactory as I rather do like working with it, you can take some really big bites bringing your work into shape fast.

Like most of you we're experiencing a major cold spell, the shop floor is freezing cold and its beginning to bother my legs. Had i been prepared would have made a spring board to stand on, in the mean time taking more breaks than usual.

Also did an alignment tuneup on the lathe, tail stock it was out a couple of thou. Now that that job s out of the way I had a chance to hog out the center of the bowel, later machine in the grooves.

Working with an opaque plastic sucks so at this point the pictures are not all that good.

Edit to make correction, re: type of plastic


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## Harold_V

Not polystyrene, Gill. That's a totally different animal (resembles Lucite, but with a different smell). Polyethylene. Polypropylene is tougher, but not nearly as user friendly. The plates in my filter press were made of polypropylene, as it has excellent chemical resistance, too. 

Yep--it (polyethylene) is very nice to machine. Doesn't dull tools, and will tolerate incredible feeds and speeds. 

I made a point of not dulling tools. Some plastics are horrible in that regard. Some are glass/resin based, and extremely abrasive. Also, some of the plastics have glass as a part of their makeup (not a resin product). All of them are horribly destructive of tooling. Best success is achieved with carbide---HSS performs poorly. Most likely more than you need to know, eh? :lol: 

Harold


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## Jimmy

Harold_V said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> Harold I need some advice, I've never worked with plastic before.
> 
> I purchased this a few years back, forgot what type of plastic it is, I can tell you when you try to pull the stringers away they're elastic and it machines reasonably well.
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like it could be polyethylene. Definitely not Delrin, Teflon or Nylon. Most likely has a bit of a waxy smell when being machined, eh?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the small end facing the tail stock, when the bowel is completed this is the end that will mount onto the motor shaft. Something in my head is telling me that I should bore this hole larger then install an insert with the hole reamed out to fit the motor shaft. What is your take on this idea.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> If you have means to install the insert so it is reliable, I agree.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The inset would be held in place with roll pins, or flanged on the bottom then secured with screws , drill a slightly larger hole to access the set screw located on the insert which also would have a key way broached in, the maximum RPM is 1500 or slower.
> 
> Ok, now I'm thinking that the flange on that metal insert should come from the inside of the bowel with a washer on the bottom side with countersunk bolts topside going straight through
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I was thinking something on the order of flanges as well. I'd consider a large nut, with enough inside diameter to permit the extension portion to be large enough to accept the required bore and keyway for the motor shaft. Sort of like a flange assembly for mounting grinding wheels.
> 
> Keeping things concentric is going to be a bit of an issue unless you hold sizes quite close. You may have to balance the entire assembly when it's completed. Castings are notorious for not being homogenous, so it could have a heavy side, even if it's machined on all surfaces, and is concentric.
> 
> I most likely would have recommended the bowl be made from 7075-T6 instead of a casting. Much more uniform, and of greater tensile strength. The strength may not be an issue, depending on the velocity of the bowl in operation.
> 
> Like to hear how it turns out. I rarely get on the board these days, so please send me an email when you post, directing me to your comments.
> 
> Jimmy,
> Wish you were near my location. I'm keen on learning more about foundry work. I intend to pour ductile iron in the future. While I never had enough interest to make the foundry my way of making a living, it has held my attention since I was a young lad---used to hang out at a couple foundries. I enjoyed all aspects, from watching cores being made to ramming and pouring molds.
> 
> Harold
Click to expand...



Well, if you guys need some pointers, dont hesitate to ask.


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## rusty

Harold_V said:


> Not polystyrene, Gill. That's a totally different animal (resembles Lucite, but with a different smell). Polyethylene. Polypropylene is tougher, but not nearly as user friendly. The plates in my filter press were made of polypropylene, as it has excellent chemical resistance, too.
> 
> Yep--it (polyethylene) is very nice to machine. Doesn't dull tools, and will tolerate incredible feeds and speeds.
> 
> I made a point of not dulling tools. Some plastics are horrible in that regard. Some are glass/resin based, and extremely abrasive. Also, some of the plastics have glass as a part of their makeup (not a resin product). All of them are horribly destructive of tooling. Best success is achieved with carbide---HSS performs poorly. Most likely more than you need to know, eh? :lol:
> 
> Harold



Fortunately my lathe has just enough power to use carbide tooling, no i was not aware that HSS would perform poorly, is this true for all types of plastics.

Thought i worked myself into a corner, after cutting the groves in I could no longer chuck the bowel from that end and still had to bore out the hole on the bottom for the insert and my longest boring bar was to short for the reach. With my BXA quick change post have an insert with a morris taper to accept the drill chuck,enabling the lathe to power feed for small drilling applications. 

With the bowel now chucked from the base and the added reach of the drill chuck the hole is now complete to accept the insert which I'm now working on between coffee breaks.

That nice pile to plastic turnings makes for a nice mat to stand on, might just leave it there. :twisted:

Harold the Casting mag came this afternoon, did you get yours.


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## rusty

Jimmy if this plastic bowels works out the rest will also be machined from the same material.


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## butcher

I am enjoying watching this project, and the progress. Thanks.


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## Jimmy

rusty said:


> Jimmy if this plastic bowels works out the rest will also be machined from the same material.
> 
> I enjoyed working my home foundry and made some decent money selling SCUBA and fishing weight molds the Case tractor company mascot Old Abe of which I have several molds that I've made up.
> 
> My largest Eagle was copied from a Case steam tractor, the fellow has it under restoration and he loaned me the firebox door long enough to copy the eagle, then I have the fence final along with bookends for the shop library. it was a good way to maximize profits from scrap aluminum.
> 
> Eventually I purchased a pneumatic tamper, and its this that finally did me in. The vibration aggravated the nerves in my neck so bad my right thumb felt is was on fire, went to the doctor to find out i have a neck injury dating back to infancy. An injury I was unaware of.
> 
> Least running the lathe I can sit and basically watch the work rather than have to manhandle hot crucibles of metals that I could unexpectedly drop with out notice. Neck injury's are not very much fun, then in my lower back have L1 and L2 shot.
> 
> So if I get cranky sometimes you have to bear with, in my youth took all this in stride but getting older takes it toll on a body.
> 
> Fell free to chime in as you can tell I'm not a machinist, just have enough ability to make things round and drill a few holes.



I think you are doing great so far.

And the neck pains are another reason to use Hydroperm. No ramming.


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## rusty

My shop burnt to the ground last night, everything is a total loss.


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## butcher

I am so sorry to hear that, I know how hard it would be to loose a shop.


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## RikkiRicardo

Wow that is a great loss to everyone 
do you have insurance? 
i was keeping a eye on this post and you were doing a great job where a lot of people could benefit from this
were can we help you you have the plans and the idea we would like to keep this project going.
again sorry for your loss.


Rikki


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## Jimmy

What?? How did that happen?


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## glondor

Oh MY. Gill, Is there any thing we can do to help. Just let us know. I am sure we can find things you need and send them on. Rotten luck for sure. Tell us what you need.


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## DONNZ

I saw this minutes after you posted. I was at a loss for words.

I know mentally things suck, your physical well being is important to us.


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## Barren Realms 007

rusty said:


> My shop burnt to the ground last night, everything is a total loss.



Oh you got to be kidding. That is the 2nd one you have lost. Man I hate to hear that.


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## srlaulis

I'm so sorry to hear that, Rusty. I was enjoying the progress. If you need anything, please let us know.


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## skippy

That's a terrible blow for you Rusty, and I hate to think of all the tools you invested in and collected being gone.
I'm know you got the grit to recover from this though and you'll be in business again before you know it.


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## DONNZ

This is the project I'm most concerned about:

Glass Positive Plates - Silver Gelitin
Fifteen hundred plus glass positive plates that a contractor found while demolishing and old building near my home.

This would make me very sad if they went in smoke. Very sad indeed.


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## glondor

Hey Buddy, you are being too quiet. What do you need to get going again.... Spit it. No need to start again from scratch if we can help.


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## rusty

Almost finished, my scr will be here in a couple of days..

I have several types of media to test the centrifuge, my biggest hope is that it is capable of scavenging the metallic material you see floating in picture number three below.


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## Smack

I've been watching this too, but ah...I think I missed something er um it might just be me.


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## srlaulis

I thought everything was a total loss with your shop? Was the centrifuge and some of your equipment not in the shop? I am a little lost right now too.


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## rusty

A lot of folks have expressed their interest in watching this project as it matures, if I had posted this project on facebook there would have been a multitude of questions. Not one question just a pat on the back, my ego does not need massaging. But my gray matter would have been stimulated from your questions.

We as a group may have found improvements to enhance the performance of this centrifuge. Instead I feel like I'm playing prey to a bunch of vultures waiting for a free meal.


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## skippy

Gill, I don't know how much input anybody could reasonably expect on a project like this, no one here designs centrifuges, and not very many have the background to make more than educated guesses. If you have any specific questions, ask away I'd be sure to put my mind to the matter in as much as I could/can.

No one is obligated to share anything here, but I see little potential for lucrative secrets in home refining/recovery, although maybe my imagination is limited. In any case, I can't see comparing the whole of the forum, not to mention the members who have tried to give input on this very thread, to vultures. Combined with the shop fire business I gotta say I am perplexed.


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## butcher

So far I have not seen anything I could add that would help.

But I really do enjoy watching you make these things, I like the wood in the lath, although I am still wondering what the pretty wood is for in this project, or if you just changed the material to plastic bowl instead.

I have no interest in building one of these, but I really do enjoy watching you build yours.

As far as questions, sorry I do not have any, I am not familiar with the gold centrifuge, enough to know what I could ask, or know enough about it to help you with yours.

As far as patting you on the back, I did not feel I was doing so, when we tell you we enjoy your sharing your project, and how we like to watch.

I also did not see any vultures lurking over your shoulder, only friends interested in your interesting project.


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## rusty

butcher said:


> So far I have not seen anything I could add that would help.
> 
> But I really do enjoy watching you make these things, I like the wood in the lath, although I am still wondering what the pretty wood is for in this project, or if you just changed the material to plastic bowl instead.
> 
> I have no interest in building one of these, but I really do enjoy watching you build yours.
> 
> As far as questions, sorry I do not have any, I am not familiar with the gold centrifuge, enough to know what I could ask, or know enough about it to help you with yours.
> 
> As far as patting you on the back, I did not feel I was doing so, when we tell you we enjoy your sharing your project, and how we like to watch.
> 
> I also did not see any vultures lurking over your shoulder, only friends interested in your interesting project.



The larger centrifuges used in mines have a fluidized bowel. the water enters in-between the rungs as a small jet to help with discarding lighter material that is hanging in the heavy metals zone. When the rungs become so compacted with precious metals the water pressure gauge on the plumbing feeding the fluidized bowel with water will rise indicating so much material has collected and become compacted the machine should be shut down and flushed.

The more advanced centrifuges are fully automated and these will run continuously without interruption, cost just under $180,000.00, maximum particle size 38 microns.

Centrifuges have been around for a very long time some of the patents I've looked at are laughable. Now that we have more power and better bearings the G-forces are reaching 600 and have the ability to concentrate ultra fine gold.

Yes I have abandoned the idea of casting the bowel and went with plastic instead.

The small clone I'm building would have set me back $8880.00, it is considered a batch or laboratory machine, you have to manually flush the bowel.

I'm using a Baldor DC 2500 RPM using an SCR to control speed, I'm thinking by adjusting the speed I'll be able to classify different metals which have a greater variance on specific gravity like copper and gold. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part.

Centrifuges are used in the coal mines to remove sulfur, they also have the ability to capture metals from flotation froth.

The first wood pattern was just some fir, the dark rings are were the wood weathered, the last patterns were turned from broad leaf maple. You get your Birdseye, tiger striped and a few other patterns from mother nature. These large maples grow on the west coast they may even grow in your part of the country.. Quit often you will see on the trunk of the tree a hatchet chop where someone has removed a small piece of the bark to examine the wood underneath.

The wood is highly prized for luthier work, people are out stealing all they can get to sell on ebay " figured maple "

A friend of mine has a mill in Chilliwhack BC, he sold me a couple thousand board feet just before we moved to Manitoba.


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## srlaulis

Wow. This thread did a 180 and went into the weird, awkward realm. I am no vulture, just a peer blown away by your skill.


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## Smack

Thanks for the response and I'm glad you did not lose everything.


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## butcher

I have worked on a few lab centrifuges used to spin test tubes, these have to have very good bearings, as they can turn at very fast RPM, these also use DC motors and speed control circuit boards, to change or regulate the speed.

I have seen the Knotty maple in the woods and also seen some very beautiful works of art some of the craftsmen in our area make out of it, I have always liked a pretty piece of wood, also like to see something useful made from it.

Thanks for explaining more about the gold centrifuge, although I am still a little confused as to how you could introduce water into the spinning drum when the spinning action is trying to spin everything to the side and maybe up and out, is the water introduced from a hose or sprayer from above the spinning drum?

Also I am curious how you will protect the motor from water (a mechanical friction seal)?

Actually I was just hoping to silently sit in the corner and watch and learn what your building, just enjoying watching a craftsman build a tool, and not be asking stupid questions not really knowing what or how this thing is or how it works.

Rusty, the post above is not like you are you ok?


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## rusty

Smack said:


> You posted on Jan. 23 how you had a fire and everything was a total loss, numerous people showed you concern and had questions. 5 days later you come back like nothing happened, with pictures in tow of how you've progressed. So here is a direct question for ya; Did you even have a fire? Or were you upset that your post was not progressing the way you thought it would so you felt the need to say something desperate? And furthermore, if you thought this was like facebook your wrong, no one jerks any so called chain on me. It's clear to me, fire or no fire that what you've done here to these people on this forum is pretty low. You don't just leave people hanging like you've done. I expect an answer from you here in the open forum and if you send it privately I will post it here. If you respond accordingly I will delete this post.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Steve



Small plastic fire mostly smoke damage, still stinks inside the shop and everything has a greasy film.


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## srlaulis

That is way off from a total loss.


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## rusty

butcher said:


> I have worked on a few lab centrifuges used to spin test tubes, these have to have very good bearings, as they can turn at very fast RPM, these also use DC motors and speed control circuit boards, to change or regulate the speed.
> 
> I have seen the Knotty maple in the woods and also seen some very beautiful works of art some of the craftsmen in our area make out of it, I have always liked a pretty piece of wood, also like to see something useful made from it.
> 
> Thanks for explaining more about the gold centrifuge, although I am still a little confused as to how you could introduce water into the spinning drum when the spinning action is trying to spin everything to the side and maybe up and out, is the water introduced from a hose or sprayer from above the spinning drum?
> 
> Also I am curious how you will protect the motor from water (a mechanical friction seal)?
> 
> Actually I was just hoping to silently sit in the corner and watch and learn what your building, just enjoying watching a craftsman build a tool, and not be asking stupid questions not really knowing what or how this thing is or how it works.
> 
> Rusty, the post above is not like you are you ok?



On the fluidized drum is jacketed, water enters the jacket from the bottom through a fluid coupling which i suspect they borrowed from the oil field. The inner bowel is tapered with rings welded to the inside these rings are approximately spaced at 2 inch intervals being about 1.5" wide.

Every manufacture have their own ideas where to place the holes, a friend now deceased several years was manufacturing a concentrator known as the Hy-G, which looked like a Falcon or another popular concentrator the Knelson all manufactured in British Colombia.

The concentrators are belt driven, the larger the bowel the slower the RPM required to generate the required g-force, for example a 24 inch diameter bowel only has to spin at approximately 675 rpm to generate 310 G's. They now claim to have a centrifuge operating at 600 G's.

You will note with the taper the discarded material wants to exit over the top of the bowel, the egg beater or lump breaker located near the bottom is stationary it's also flanged to keep debris away from the crucial parts.

On the one I'm working on I've cut a piece of pipe just over the OD of my bowel leaving 1 inch of the bowel above, the garbage is tossed at such speed it will clear the pipe, so the pipe protects my motor from water and what not. My discharge pipe is cut and welded near the bottom of that recycled propane tank. next time I install a slanted floor sloping towards the discharge.


----------



## rusty

Material types to run through the centrifuge.

If I had a few pounds of tungsten powder I could do a more controlled evaluation.

This is what I have on hand, Incinerated IC's, this has settled out in three layers the top is I'm sure almost garbage the 2nd layer is thick mud while the bottom layer is sandy like with small beads. from the mud layer after its been run through I'll add some acid to see if any precious metals remain.

Also form the incinerated and milled IC's there is visible metallic material that floats on the water surface, I'm curious to see what the centrifuge is able to do with it.

Gold from plated pins mixed with small bits of plastic, just enough nitric to remove the gold. This has been sitting for almost two years. These are from that 45 gallon drum of plugs I run through the hammer mill. Now I've reduced this to half a 20 liter pail.

Cemented copper with precious metals traces, from this lot I get to play with specif gravity with the variable rpm

Cemented silver using aluminum, should be an easy run to separate the goo from the silver cement.


----------



## butcher

I done a quick search on goggle and looked at these, the last link had a video of a centrifuge in operation, this gave me a much better Idea of what you are building, and how they work, I have heard of people who make bio-diesel from cooking oil, making and using this type of centrifuge, maybe you could get some ideas from how they are making their homemade units.
I noticed the one in the video (link below) they used what looked like a removable stainless steel drum, also it seems very similar to me to be like a washing machine on spin cycle, spinning the snot out of the liquids until the solids stick to the outer side of the drum.

Also I guess for gold you would be feeding the unit with very fine slurry of water and gold along with minerals, I am still wondering if the black sand would not just be stuck to the sides of the drum with the gold and other solids of the slurry.

Could you find a stainless steel washing machine and adapt it speeding up the spin cycle?

http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0hdl--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-home---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00-0-0-11-10-0utfZz-8-10&a=d&c=hdl&cl=CL2.19.7&d=HASHc096d161f676b196cfad56.23.8

http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0hdl--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-home---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&cl=CL2.19.7&d=HASHc096d161f676b196cfad56.23.8&x=1


http://www.interfil.com.au/centrifuge.html


----------



## rusty

The key to the gold concentrator is the cone shaped bowel when the lighter material makes contact with that spinning cone there is tremendous upwards velocity generated as is with the heavier material but the later has a tendency to find homage in the groves.

The large commercial rigs will scavenge a certain amount of black sand, this is sent out for further processing.

After my SCR arrives and i get this thing wired to some power, I'll shoot a video running that IC mud.


----------



## rusty

Same manufacture with 38 inch bowels sample of hole configurations.


----------



## butcher

Now I understand the reason for the plastic drum, acidic solutions.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> Now I understand the reason for the plastic drum, acidic solutions.



No I'm not planning to run acidic solutions there would be a certain amount of misting which would not be good to breath.

it was a case of having the plastic on hand combined with a bit of impatience for want of casting the bowel.


----------



## rusty

Tested the centrifuge this evening, my biggest mistake was not building a larger one.

I ran some slimy mud the concentrates recovered are sandy in texture, tomorrow I'll dry some out and have a better look under the glass.


----------



## nickvc

Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.


----------



## rusty

After running the XP model centrifuge figured out some improvements to make on the next build.

As promised a video and a picture of the concentrates still in the bowel, as you can see 99% of the black material is removed. What I did learn this evening is that once the groves are filled the concentrates keep building up - I believe the man said it was called co-adhesion.

The concentrates left in the bowel don't look like much of anything, but this is the stuff were after $$$

Tomorrows project find a suitable pump in my junk pile so that I don't have to hand feed the bowel, this thing is thirsty and can handle more liquids being tossed at it.

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEbtj2OMVMY&feature=youtu.be [/youtube]


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## srlaulis

Now that was a cool video! While watching it, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of "I want to do it, I want to do it"! :lol: Very impressive work!


----------



## rusty

nickvc said:


> Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.



The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.

It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:


----------



## nickvc

Rusty I don't process the sort of material most do on the forum and I have access to quick cheap assays and deals with the refiners to accept at reasonable rates the materials I process but I still love your ingenuity and creativity and I'm sure that many members could adapt your ideas for their own processing... Keep at it!


----------



## srlaulis

rusty said:


> nickvc said:
> 
> 
> 
> Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.
> 
> It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:
Click to expand...


How much are you charging for said machine?


----------



## rusty

srlaulis said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> nickvc said:
> 
> 
> 
> Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.
> 
> It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> How much are you charging for said machine?
Click to expand...


Before even considering a sale would have to prove my theories out on a redesigned bowel I have in mind. There will be no sales until I'm totally satisfied as you should be on receiving a centrifuge.

Once I do have a machine I'm satisfied with I will post in the sell and trade thread so that I do not appear as a common spammer.


----------



## Barren Realms 007

You a spammer. ROFL... Never mistake you for that.


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## srlaulis

Barren Realms 007 said:


> You a spammer. ROFL... Never mistake you for that.



I second that, Barren.


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## rusty

...


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## butcher

I refine under an old big oak tree, I swear its leaves get bigger every year, it seems to love the NOx fumes, I think which may end up as nitrate fertilizer for the oak, although I do try to capture as much of the fumes myself to make nitric with. :lol:


----------



## rusty

I'm like a kid on Christmas eve full of excitement and anticipation of my upcoming gold mining trip come May 15th.

A friend of mine has several claims located on Manson Creek, Northern B.C. he has invited me to join him for the season. These are working claims that have steadily produced 3 to 4 ounces of gold per week

In the mean time while I wait, I'm going to build a much larger centrifuge to take up with me.


----------



## butcher

I would be working on the dredge :lol:


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I would be working on the dredge :lol:



Over the millennium the creek bed has changed its course. It's not that type of operation, more like a gravel pit.


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## butcher

Well then make up some classifier buckets, can you get water to the site easily? or are you having to dig and take the material to water?


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## rusty

butcher said:


> Well then make up some classifier buckets, can you get water to the site easily? or are you having to dig and take the material to water?



Butcher this is already a working claim, with a couple of loaders and an old excavator and a sluice already in place, one partner passed away recently opening a placement for someone willing to work long hours for little pay. 

I appreciate your suggestions but It's not my place to tell John how to run his operation. On my part will build a larger centrifuge, load up my ball mill and take up some acids with an attitude towards putting in some long hours working with old equipment that will probably break down every second day.

I'm entering this expedition with both eyes open, I realize working a gold mine is not a quick road to riches it is more a lifestyle that fits my unusual personality. I'm thankful that I have been invited in on a share of the proceeds with out laying out any of my hard earned cash.

Even if I return home penniless I will have had a good time having spent the summer months in an environment suitable to my nature.

I've had my Garret Infinium LS for two years this will be a good chance to get away from human trash common to parks and cemetery's and do some real nugget hunting.

The strangest thing is that last week I had listed the metal detector on ebay then canceled the auction, then this evening get a call from John - good karma.


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## butcher

Rusty, that sounds great, I really wasn't sure how you would be mining, or to what extent, it sounds like you should be able to go thorough a lot of material with that equipment, and I know with your skills you can keep it running, getting out and working in the fresh air, away from the rat race, and digging in the dirt what more can a guy ask for, except maybe that his pockets get filled with a little gold to help ease his mind from that aching back.

Please do keep us informed, along with your metal detector pack your camera, so we can see how much fun you had.


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## rusty

With the original set up motor direct coupled to the bowel not such a good idea a bit of water worked its way into the motor sending it up in a cloud of smoke. 

Fortunately I had a spare which I decided to mount on the side using a belt drive.

Anyone care to take a guess as to which metal is in the tan streaks.


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## rusty

Anyone who has incinerated IC's knows that the resulting ash is very black, here are a few pictures to show the color of my concentrates coming out of my centrifuge.

Should make a very nice button.


----------



## rusty

First picture is IC ash before processing through the centrifuge 2nd picture would normally be your discarded tailings.

For those who are perhaps contemplating a centrifuge in future, never add a surfactant to your feed water.

If you up-size the first picture you can see the blue off some of the metals from the camera flash, this bottom layer of material gets more interesting.


----------



## butcher

Is your plan to acid treat this material while the material is still fine powders, to further part the metals before trying to melt?

That is nice looking mud.

Is that a speed control circuit to varying the speed of the motor?


I am curious what would happen if you done a test run with a sludge of say some different types of metal shavings of different density, maybe the shavings easily recognized after words, like copper, brass, or zinc, or aluminum. Or other metals, so you could see how they separated by density, like a metal shaving and some mud to see if you could separate metal shavings from mud.

Maybe try a test the materials that spun out of the unit for values like fine gold flakes to see if some is getting spun out of the bowl.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> Is your plan to acid treat this material while the material is still fine powders, to further part the metals before trying to melt?
> 
> That is nice looking mud.
> 
> Is that a speed control circuit to varying the speed of the motor?
> 
> 
> I am curious what would happen if you done a test run with a sludge of say some different types of metal shavings of different density, maybe the shavings easily recognized after words, like copper, brass, or zinc, or aluminum. Or other metals, so you could see how they separated by density, like a metal shaving and some mud to see if you could separate metal shavings from mud.
> 
> Maybe try a test the materials that spun out of the unit for values like fine gold flakes to see if some is getting spun out of the bowl.



Thanks Butcher, that nice looking mud was long time in the making, I started working on this material while still living at the other house a year and a half back then my work in progress was suddenly interrupted by our move. 

I really don't have the patience for refining, waiting on filtering, evaporating and so forth so I may have an assay done on the cons then send the concentrates out to a refinery if they'll agree to be pay out on all precious metals. Makes more sense to me, shearing off chips, incinerating then concentrating the values for a quick turn around. Refinery's like repeat customers and I'm not fond of having gallons of acids then having to deal with the waste.

Yes that is a speed control wired onto a .5 Hp DC Baldor motor, I had in mind that by varying the speed one could selectively pull different metals by density. This may work in special circumstances.

There are no gold flakes, this material which had previously been run through, the ball mill turned everything into powder, I do believe the brown were seeing is finely divided gold. I know there are values going over the top of the bowel to be safe I'm going to run my tailings one more time then to be sure to catch everything run the tailings in AR to see if I missed anything.

I already have the makings of a new centrifuge mapped out from what I have learned of this one.


----------



## rusty

The bowel for this centrifuge started life as a 6" solid poly round, which will set you back $60.00 a ft. the inside diameter at the top is 4.5" the top 1.5" is straight wall then tapering down at 10 degrees towards the bottom.

The bottom end was machined large to accept a metal insert machined to an outside diameter of 1.5" with a 5/8" bore to make my internal 3/16" keyway I turned a 5/8" metal shaft to fill the bore then drilled a 3/16" hole along side the plug then profiled an old file into a chisel to square up the newly drilled 3/16" to accept the key, the bottom metal insert was machined a couple thou over so its a tight fit. After it was pressed in I drilled three holes through the plastic into the side of the metal insert then installed roll pins to hold everything in place, then drilled and tapped holes for my set screws.

The grooves can be any configuration you choose.

My motor is a half horse Baldor DC wired into a speed control, motor is rated at 2500 rpm but when i first powered the centrifuge up the controller had not been adjusted internally as yet and the bowel according to my digital tachometer was running 3200 rpm.

The bowel is not dead center on its axis my guess its off a couple of thou but seems no harm comes of it.

What your aiming for is 300 - 600 G's to be generated from your bowel.

I sincerely believe the centrifuge is the way to go for those who do not wish to use acids and deal with waste an opportunity to capitalize on e-waste. A simple ball mill will pulverize your chips no incineration necessary then you concentrate the pulp then second party assay your cons before sending then off to a refinery.

If you perform a simple dilute nitric leach you can pull silver/palladium out from the ash, what I did for filtering was drill a bunch of holes into the bottom of a 20 liter pail, flatten and insert a layer of coffee filters then wet these down with water before adding the material being filtered. The top pail rested onto top of another pail to receive the filtrate. Then I used copper to cement everything that would, this material is still waiting to be processed.

So far I've recovered 6 lbs of cons from about 1.2 tons of mother boards and daughter cards using the centrifuge.


----------



## etack

rusty said:


> Anyone who has incinerated IC's knows that the resulting ash is very black, here are a few pictures to show the color of my concentrates coming out of my centrifuge.
> 
> Should make a very nice button.



I don't agree with this I just burnt 20+# and the ash was grey not black if its black you haven't burnt it far enough. My ash looks like coal ash when done. White grey and powdery is what my ash looked like, when wet it was considerably darker though.

As a side note this looks really cool. Have you thought of putting the rest in your melting furnace to see if you get a bar out of it and this might be a better idea than sending off powder. If you have any cemented silver would be what I would use. Just keep adding the bare to each batch till your all done that have the bar assayed. 

Eric


----------



## rusty

etack said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone who has incinerated IC's knows that the resulting ash is very black, here are a few pictures to show the color of my concentrates coming out of my centrifuge.
> 
> Should make a very nice button.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't agree with this I just burnt 20+# and the ash was grey not black if its black you haven't burnt it far enough. My ash looks like coal ash when done. White grey and powdery is what my ash looked like, when wet it was considerably darker though.
> 
> As a side note this looks really cool. Have you thought of putting the rest in your melting furnace to see if you get a bar out of it and this might be a better idea than sending off powder. If you have any cemented silver would be what I would use. Just keep adding the bare to each batch till your all done that have the bar assayed.
> 
> Eric
Click to expand...


If i had access to an induction furnace to better homogenize the melt this is what i would have done.

Agreed the majority of chips come out gray, I don't cherry pick so I get black ash.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> Is your plan to acid treat this material while the material is still fine powders, to further part the metals before trying to melt?
> 
> I am curious what would happen if you done a test run with a sludge of say some different types of metal shavings of different density, maybe the shavings easily recognized after words, like copper, brass, or zinc, or aluminum. Or other metals, so you could see how they separated by density, like a metal shaving and some mud to see if you could separate metal shavings from mud.



And I'm most curious if the centrifuge is capable of separating abraded silver from plated silver run through the ball mill loaded with abrasives.


----------



## rusty

As I near the bottom of the tub my tan mud is thinning out, scarcely getting any. What I'm getting now is more darker mud. 

Here is whats left on the bottom of the first tub, it's more like coarse sand.


----------



## rusty

Well lookie here, the City of Edmonton uses a centrifuge in their electronics recycling center.

http://www.edmonton.ca/for_resident...-and-electronic-waste-recycling-facility.aspx


----------



## butcher

I would just be curios and pan a portion of bottom sands, and then spin some of them just to try to see what the difference would be.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I would just be curios and pan a portion of bottom sands, and then spin some of them just to try to see what the difference would be.



I viewed the course sand under 10x, no visible gold then fed some into the bowel it clogged up immediately no amount of water would dislodge it. Tomorrow I'm going to run the mud a second time, did a partial of it this evening and found that there are not much values left behind. It now takes twice as many bowel fills to get half the amount of cons you would normally get from virgin ash.

The sandy crap is the dregs left over from having sloshed the water around to stir up the silt, so I really did not expect to find any values. i just wanted to see how the centrifuge would handle the course sand it would have been beneficial should a person want to set up at a gold claim with a larger unit on their settling pond from the sluice. Fellow could offer a share of the take.

Another interesting thought, the fellow who owns the Ready Mix plant from were we used to live, the area is well known for gold and he washes his sand and sometimes environment lets out a permit to remove sand from the Fraser River bars during the winter months all the dregs from the wash plant go into a settling pond. It was a thought to rum some of this material one day should I be back in the neighborhood.

One plastic tobacco tub filled to the brim - 6 lbs. For you guys that like to play with numbers the diameter of the plastic tub is 4.469" X 6.406" high so thats about a pound to the inch.


----------



## rusty

The sheared material consisted of chips, capacitors, diodes, resistors and leds anything magnetic was removed.

Values expected to be recovered from the cons, Silver, Gold, Tantalum, Germanium, Palladium and Platinum have i over looked anything of which may be worthy.


----------



## etack

gallium you will need a lot to make any money but its there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium

Eric


----------



## rusty

Curious how many of our members would be interested in following this thread up with all of us contributing towards refining this 6.5 lbs on concentrates for all the recoverable metals keeping in mind that the material was pre leached once already using a dilute nitric acid.

This way we'll all be able to have a record on the return values.

In other words treat me the Noob I am and we'll document everything.


----------



## rusty

A few pounds of pins, I'm going to screen out the larger material than run the mud -yes through the centrifuge. 

Bet you guys are getting tired of this machine already.

How to tell when your still getting good cons, it clings to the spoon while ash simply falls away clean.

I did manage to squeeze another 1.5 lbs of cons from my tailings.

edit to add picture. I ran a couple of liters from the pins wash water, what I got is mostly copper.


----------



## Dan Dement

Rusty,

Following your thread with lots of interest. I would like to comment on one thing you said concerning Induction Melters and melting this type of material. I have two Induction Melters and have fried both of them, The first time I was trying to melt rather clean bench Pt/Pd sweeps in my Titanium Casting machine. In Pt/Pd crucibles there is no graphite and all the Induction power passes thru the material and back into the machine. Last month, it was in my smaller wand melter which has a graphite crucible. I have been awaiting my new water coils of about 4 weeks and I have learned my lesson on trying to melt "sandy type" of materials. 

The last time it was only $800 and the first time was very expensive. No more sandy type materials for me as I am just going to send it in to my refiner. I know this really does not apply much to your thread but I hoping others can learn from my mistakes.

Dan


----------



## rusty

Dan Dement said:


> Rusty,
> 
> Following your thread with lots of interest. I would like to comment on one thing you said concerning Induction Melters and melting this type of material. I have two Induction Melters and have fried both of them, The first time I was trying to melt rather clean bench Pt/Pd sweeps in my Titanium Casting machine. In Pt/Pd crucibles there is no graphite and all the Induction power passes thru the material and back into the machine. Last month, it was in my smaller wand melter which has a graphite crucible. I have been awaiting my new water coils of about 4 weeks and I have learned my lesson on trying to melt "sandy type" of materials.
> 
> The last time it was only $800 and the first time was very expensive. No more sandy type materials for me as I am just going to send it in to my refiner. I know this really does not apply much to your thread but I hoping others can learn from my mistakes.
> 
> Dan



Dan I think your experience with your induction furnaces should be made a sticky.

Somewhere I read this very same thing you commented on melting powdered metals. Humans are funny in which information they choose to retain all I could remember is that the induction furnace was very good at homogenizing the melt allowing for good pin samples to be taken then used for an assay.


----------



## rusty

I got it wrong, the gold lodged itself in behind the copper.

Some may recall that 45 gallon drum i had full of network cable plugs, that I fed into the hammer mill to liberate the pins. This is them that I'm now working on.

When I do a large lot of pins I use just enough nitric to etch the plated gold off leaving the pin basically intact, two days ago i started neutralizing the acid with urea then this evening decanted the liquid then added fresh water to assist with screening.

I might add that the cons gold and copper cling tighter to the spoon than the previous batch from ash.

Some may be wondering why i would purposely feed a couple of thousand dollars worth of gold through the centrifuge, it's a closed loop system you can not possibly loose your values. Besides had I choose not to i would have missed the opportunity to learn that my gold lodged behind the copper.


----------



## rusty

I'm thinking to mill up the next batch of mixed IC's and pins as they come off the boards, then make a concentrate before incinerating. Which at this point the material you have to deal with would only be a fraction of the original mass.

Now the kicker, from my observations from running my gold pin mud into cons the gold having a much denser specific gravity lodged itself into the bowel first with the majority of the copper skimming over the compacted surface layer of the more dense material back into tailings.

According to the table below, with the dynamics of how a concentrating centrifuge works, tin would be discarded back to tailings along with the lighter fractions. Of course the only way to know for sure would be to do periodic testing or have an assay done of your cons.

If you know what your feedstock contains and what the bowel is capturing and what is being discarded to tailings a fellow could process the cons from the bowel then go after values from tailings via a heap leach set up. it has now become obvious to me that there are certain values in my ash which have gone to tailings. Most of which we the home refiner would have discarded anyhow.

Here's where copper comes into the picture, because of its specific gravity and unique color this metal makes a good indicator, when your cons become loaded you'll know when your entering that zone of material you wish to quit recovering leaving the rest to tailings, assay then sell off. Which is the route i prefer to follow.

The elements coded in red would be expected as tailings while the green would be in the bowel cons

Carbon is 1.8-3.59 
Germanium is 5.323
Gallium is 5.904 
Tin 7.31
Iron is 7.894 
Copper is 8.96 
Nickel is 8.902 
Silver is 10.5
Lead is 11.35
Tantalum is 16.654 
Gold is 19.32
Palladium is 12.02 
Rhodium is 12.41 
Platinum is 21.45


----------



## Dan Dement

Rusty,

Two observations: First, I do lots of SG measurements in my cash outs and I want to point out that 24kt gold is in the 19. range but I doubt if you are dealing in pure gold. Most 14kt is more in the 13. range depending on the mixture so that needs to be in your figuring. 
Second: One of my learning curves in trying to melt grainular mixtures and using my XRF. In taking readings on 6oo gram incinerated ash from bench sweeps. I was getting a high gold content of the sweeps at 65% and got excited as to the return for a Jeweler friend. Sent the sweeps into my refiner and I had the purity correct but the weight was only 40% of the of the expected weight. My latest XRF uses an upper silicon drift detector to measure the return of Xrays from the 4 bands. The limitation of this type and price range XRF ($40,000) is that it will not detect anything lower than the silicon which element 14 of the Periodic table which inludes Aluminum. Most of the polishing wheels are made out of Aluminum Oxide which is a form of silicon which is below the the level which my machine will detect hence it is invisible to my XRF. Now, that I melted looks very similar to what you are trying to do and if a high percentage of your mixture is silicon, it is going to be difficult to get it to metal. 

Now I claim NO expertise in refining, I try to find and learn from other technologies. I find your experiments in the centrifuge very interesting and wonder if there is a practical application in seperating out the metals such as platinum from the lighter metals like palladium. I follow your experiments with great interest and appauld your efforts and sharing.

Hope my experience is useful to you.

Dan


----------



## rusty

Dan Dement said:


> Rusty,
> 
> Two observations: First, I do lots of SG measurements in my cash outs and I want to point out that 24kt gold is in the 19. range but I doubt if you are dealing in pure gold. Most 14kt is more in the 13. range depending on the mixture so that needs to be in your figuring.
> Second: One of my learning curves in trying to melt grainular mixtures and using my XRF. In taking readings on 6oo gram incinerated ash from bench sweeps. I was getting a high gold content of the sweeps at 65% and got excited as to the return for a Jeweler friend. Sent the sweeps into my refiner and I had the purity correct but the weight was only 40% of the of the expected weight. My latest XRF uses an upper silicon drift detector to measure the return of Xrays from the 4 bands. The limitation of this type and price range XRF ($40,000) is that it will not detect anything lower than the silicon which element 14 of the Periodic table which inludes Aluminum. Most of the polishing wheels are made out of Aluminum Oxide which is a form of silicon which is below the the level which my machine will detect hence it is invisible to my XRF. Now, that I melted looks very similar to what you are trying to do and if a high percentage of your mixture is silicon, it is going to be difficult to get it to metal.
> 
> Now I claim NO expertise in refining, I try to find and learn from other technologies. I find your experiments in the centrifuge very interesting and wonder if there is a practical application in seperating out the metals such as platinum from the lighter metals like palladium. I follow your experiments with great interest and appauld your efforts and sharing.
> 
> Hope my experience is useful to you.
> 
> Dan



Very interesting Dan, from your information I can clearly see there is no danger of loosing any gold buy quiting the operation on saturated copper banding in the grooves.

Some of my projects had been started two years or more back, what I found is that buckets set aside with water and ash the heavier fractions formed a thick cemented layer. It is my belief that one could have decant the upper fractions leaving the precious metals behind, you virtually needed a jack hammer to loosen the cemented bottom layer.

The word I want to use to express myself currently escapes me, precious metals whetted have an affinity causing the particles as our friend Isaac Newton put it what goes up must come down fortunately precious metals whetted have an affinity for one another. They tend to form a heavy layer on the bottom of a pail left to stand a very long time so cemented together, that particular bottom layer actually squeezes the water out, you almost need a jack hammer to free it up.

I'm going to conduct a similar experiment using clear test tubes and my eriez vibrating unit to speed the process, hopefully there will be a visible color shift between the layers as they settle out and find their place in the specif gravity band where they belong.

As for separating platinum from palladium mechanically I do not see it possible.


----------



## Dan Dement

Rusty,

Thanks for the input. The answer to the Pd/Pt question is what keeps our friend Lou, a very busy man. 

Dan


----------



## rusty

Dan Dement said:


> Rusty,
> 
> Thanks for the input. The answer to the Pd/Pt question is what keeps our friend Lou, a very busy man.
> 
> Dan



Your welcome Dan, i enjoy the input.


----------



## rusty

How many of you have one or more stock pots on the go, just as we were moving two years ago I ended up with at least a dozen. I was so discussed with the situation I never did bother taking count, but the elephant in the room awaits me.

Once i get caught up on what I'm working on, I'm going to run the cemented waste from these buckets through the new toy. Should make nice cons.


----------



## nickvc

Dan many modern, not all, platinum alloys contain cobalt which is magnetic this is usually the casting alloys not the wire and sheet from what I have found so separating the platinum is easy with a magnet with a strong plastic bag over it if your dealing with castings, not so easy if you have a mix of alloys but if you just have platinum and palladium then nitric will dissolve the palladium leaving the platinum.


----------



## butcher

I keep a good one gallon stock pot, and a five gallon bucket fairly good stock pot, the five gallon bucket gets the waste from my good stock pot, and solutions not worth going into the gallon stock pot, so I would not have stock pots to run through your new toy.

But I do have that elephant in the room I would like to try your toy on, my waste buckets of metal sludge waste that takes me forever to dry out (which seems to be almost on hold during the winter months), I wonder how it would work to spin out the salt water and help spin dry the waste, or at least get it almost dry?

Now dog-gone-it I want a new toy to try out.

I do like the looks of some of that mud your making with that thing.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I keep a good one gallon stock pot, and a five gallon bucket fairly good stock pot, the five gallon bucket gets the waste from my good stock pot, and solutions not worth going into the gallon stock pot, so I would not have stock pots to run through your new toy.
> 
> But I do have that elephant in the room I would like to try your toy on, my waste buckets of metal sludge waste that takes me forever to dry out (which seems to be almost on hold during the winter months), I wonder how it would work to spin out the salt water and help spin dry the waste, or at least get it almost dry?
> 
> Now dog-gone-it I want a new toy to try out.
> 
> I do like the looks of some of that mud your making with that thing.



I'm not here to promote a sale but assist you with building your own toy.

You can sub the DC motor and related hardware for any half or third HP AC motor that runs 1125 rpm rotation does not matter, I've yet to use the speed control other that to start and run the motor. 

The 6 inch solid round polyethylene will set you back $60.00 for a foot which is all you need.

it would work like a hot &76%, you may even be surprised to find some values in your sludge buckets, once again using the table bellow if your material from the more dense specific gravity range these will be the first to collect into the grooves of the bowel once they have been depleted the next densest materials will take the place of the more dense material previously depleted from feedstock.

Copper with its unique color and SP makes a good indicator.

With the sludge pots I have there are known values, I have the same problem filtering and drying, 

I already know that copper skates across the densely compacted precious metals leaving trace amounts on the compacted surface, it is only when the grooves begin to completely fill with copper that I know I have depleted the more dense metals and it is now time to quit processing. It would be foolish to purposely ad more copper to good cons.

If by chance I have sent traces of precious metals to tailings it's no big deal I can send the tailings to a refinery who will catch those traces, the idea here is to hasten the cash flow.

The outer tub is made from a discarded propane tank with a few bits of scrap metal welded to it, a couple of bearings and a junk yard motor.


----------



## Dan Dement

Nick,

I do not know about you but I REALLY do not care from for the Cobalt alloys of Platinum. Most of those that I see after several years have a rust colored grain in the metal which is certainly a turnoff for this old jeweler. I do not recycle any cobalt Platinum and only send it in to be recycled. We actually buy all our metals pure and alloy them ourselves. Considering Palladium is about 90% of our manufacturing business, keeping all the metals separate is certainly a challenge. Our mutual friend Lou & I have been working on some new alloys and we are getting very near with an announcement on some different alloys. It's interesting where some GRF friendships take you. Keeps life interesting for us old Jewelry dogs!

All the best!

Dan


----------



## rusty

My last cons, same material, wet and dry pictures. 

The dry matte has a purple tinge to it.


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## butcher

MMM that does look good.


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## skippy

I'd like to see if the machine can spin metal hydroxides out of waste solutions as an alternative to a filter press. You might need to make the liquid additions slower otherwise the light metal hydroxides are going to shoot off as quick as anything. 

You could make up some solutions of nickel, or iron, or aluminum in hcl, neutralize them dillute and see what the machine can do.


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## rusty

Cut away diagram of a commercially manufactured centrifuge.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> I'd like to see if the machine can spin metal hydroxides out of waste solutions as an alternative to a filter press. You might need to make the liquid additions slower otherwise the light metal hydroxides are going to shoot off as quick as anything.
> 
> You could make up some solutions of nickel, or iron, or aluminum in hcl, neutralize them dillute and see what the machine can do.



The type of bowel used on my experimental centrifuge would more than likely recover hydroxides as long as they are a solid particulate with a greater specific gravity than any other had another adulterant with a closely related SG this material would also co-adhere to the bowel.


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## rusty

The cons once again incinerated, we're going for the gold next.


----------



## mlgdave

excellent job Rusty, yes the commercial units are VERY expensive and what you have made works just as well from what I can see, great job!
you will definitely want to run your buddies black sands from the mining operation and shock him!

Mlgdave


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## rusty

mlgdave said:


> excellent job Rusty, yes the commercial units are VERY expensive and what you have made works just as well from what I can see, great job!
> you will definitely want to run your buddies black sands from the mining operation and shock him!
> 
> Mlgdave



Thanks Mlgdave, any improvement on how much gold is recovered from the claim would be a bonus, my share is from the wee end.


----------



## butcher

I am still wondering about converting the wife's washing machine on spin cycle, but every time I begin thinking about it she gives me a funny look :lol:


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I am still wondering about converting the wife's washing machine on spin cycle, but every time I begin thinking about it she gives me a funny look :lol:



If memory serves me right it was a woman washing the miners work cloths who discovered flotation.

Cons after HCL leach, tan brown.

I think that the centrifuge may have also captured tantalum ( SG 16.654 ) from the ash which is definitely adding to the final weight of the cons recovered. As expected not a whole lot of copper ( SG 8.96 ), which is evident from the HCL leach.

This will be my test tube sample.


----------



## rusty

Just to give you an idea of the weight to volume there's 2 grams of bone dry cons in each test tube. We'll see what tomorrow brings, this is if I can get my nitric keg free of the ice.


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## skippy

Rusty, 

I hope you get lots of gold from this! I forget the history on what you've done to get this far - do you still have metallics you melted left to process?


----------



## rusty

The powder, 2 grams in each test tube comes from the same lot, from left to right.

Starting material sheared IC''s from mother boards and daughter cards, I suspect the majority of the insoluble powder left behind in the AR is tantalum along with a few other goodies.

A better explanation for the noob, the material I'm working with is everything that would shear off from the mother boards and daughter cards, removed anything that would stick to a magnet then incinerated the left overs.

After incinerating, ball milled, then I ran the ash through the home built centrifuge to gets cons, the cons consist of metals heavier than copper ( SG 8.89 ) with small traces of copper in the cons.

Since I had included everything from the motherboards and daughter cards it was expected that the centrifuge would also capture tantalum ( SG 16.69 ) along with gold ( SG 19.32 ) , Platinum ( SG 21.45 ). These are all heavier that copper ( SG 8.89 ) which is where I stopped concentrating the cons. 

Stopping the concentrating operation at the point of copper collecting in the bowel however leave me with trace amounts of copper in the cons.

Had I not previously leached the incinerated ash with a dilute nitric, silver ( SG 10.50 ) and palladium ( SG 12.02 ) would have also shown up in the cons.

Test tube number one once again using an HCL leach shows me that after my initial HCL pre leach there are some base metals left behind, a better rinse would help to remove the residual base, test tubes 2 and 3 had also been pre leached using HCL.

Test tube number two now has a dilute nitric leach, something has gone into solution leaving a beautiful tan powder behind, it's the gold in the powder giving it this nice tan color. Also the solution from this tube was decanted then adding HCL to check for silver chloride precipitate which tested negative.

Test tube number three has the classic gold chloride color with a hint of green, I suspect platinum will show on a stannous test once the gold has been precipitated. Also there appears to be a slight white precipitate forming on this vial. The addition of sulphuric acid may tell a story - tin or lead.

The white precipitate could also be calcium hydroxide or calcium nitrate from my well water.

The color on test tube 3 has lost the tan color due to the powder giving up its gold to the AR. The insolubles left behind I suspect is mostly tantalum which AR has no effect on.

After precipitating the gold and testing for other values in tube 3, I'll be able to make a better decision in which direction to proceed with the large lot, 7 lbs of cons waiting to be processed.

As Ms.Hoke teaches us in her book acquaint yourself with the material your working with.

1. HCL leach
2. Nitric acid 50/50 water
3. Aqua Regia


----------



## butcher

I like this thread, it is kind of like watching a movie, and now you stopped the movie right at the most suspenseful moment, I cannot wait to see the test results.


----------



## nickvc

I'm with you there Butcher as usual a fascinating thread from Rusty, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he recovers loads of values, it'll cheer me up immensely.


----------



## gold4mike

I feel like a sports fan sitting in the bleachers, watching my team (Rusty) win big. The suspense is killing me too :mrgreen:


----------



## rusty

We concern ourselves with vials number 3 and 4.

Noxxed using urea, precipitated with SMB. The next step check with stannous for PGM's in vial 4.

Unfortunately I do not own an analytical scale and have to depend on visuals to make my conclusions.

I found that stannous crystals left open to the air will deteriorate becoming useless.

While several pails of urea prills left outdoors for a year and now full of water worked perfectly.


----------



## rusty

We have a slice in time coming up while I wash the cons better before moving onto the next stage. In the meantime the gold has settled out.

While the wash water is wicking out from the first batch of cons, I'm getting this small 10 lb batch of chips ready for the ball mill. 

The chips are going in as is with out incinerating, after milling classify then remove any magnetic material then into the centrifuge the centrifuge. The cons worked from here forward worked to remove base metals, silver and palladium before moving onto the gold and PGM's.

This material will be added to the first lot to be processed at the same time.


----------



## rusty

This 10.25 lbs of chips was not incinerated but rather ball milled as is and are now in the green pail being whetted before screening out the trash. 

The foam is no big deal the centrifuge eats it right up.

In the screen a sample of the trash removed from the ball milled chips, everything looking good the gold from the plated pins has been abraded off.

An interesting discovery, previously I had incinerated all my fingers, this time just added the few I had on hand as is into the mill. From the last picture you will note that the gold abraded off leaving the nickel behind on the copper underlay.

From this lot I expect to recover some base metal, silver, gold and any platinum group metals in the centrifuge, the recovered cons will then get incinerated, hcl treatment - incinerated then a nitric leach to recover silver and any palladium present, the remainder will be added to the current lot that I'm working on.

By having ball milled the chips as is, the process was environmentally friendly, instead of incinerating 10.25 lbs of plastic and resins from which the chips are made up from.

I'll end up with perhaps half a pound of concentrates from that 10.25 lbs of chips. 

Incinerating incinerating half a pound of cons will not have a great impact on the environment, in addition there will be savings on the amount of acids required to process, plus fuel. 

Not to mention time saved on filtering and liquid disposal.


----------



## butcher

I had some material, that had some small gold foils and tiny flakes of gold, mixed in with many other metal powders, much like some of the materials you are centrifuging, just for the fun of it I thought I would try and pan a small sample, what I noticed is the material would not separate by panning very well at all, the fine gold powders and foils are just moved along by the other material, the gold is also so fine it will float around in the water, sometimes almost easier than some of the less denser metal powders.

I do not know if the centrifuge, would have the same trouble as I seen in the pan, but I think it possibly could have, I think it would be interesting to make a small controlled experiment, taking some very fine gold foils, powders and so on, and weigh them, mix them with a little of your sludge material, in the consistency, you normally have, then run it through the centrifuge, and see what you recover back, also testing the solution that floated out of the pot, who knows floating the gold with froth floatation and centrifuging at the same time (probably at a lower speed may also prove to be a way to recover).

P.S. the screen in the skillet, I really like that tip, on second look that may just be a plastic strainer that looked like a skillet to me in your picture, I have been having a lot of trouble drying material for incineration, taking a long time at low heat to dry out the liquid in a corning dish, as the material will bubble and spit if heat is raised too high to fast, it can take all day on warm before it is dry enough to raise the heat, the screen holding the majority of the material off of the bottom may just be an answer, this way the liquids below could be raised to a higher temperature, steaming through the material held above in the screen, any spitting would stay in the pot better, once more dry they could be crushed through the stainless steel screen to the bottom of the pan ready to raise the heat and incinerated.


----------



## Marcel

I follow this thread and I am quite faszinated, because I like your approach to minimize chemicals and toxic procedures to a minimum. I think that is the right way to go for any homerefiner. Will there be a video on your centrifuge and how it works? I have yet not fully understood how and at which point you reduce the material to a concentrate. A vid would be helpful in understanding this better. Hope to read some yields one day as well... Thumps up on your report!


----------



## rusty

Marcel said:


> I follow this thread and I am quite faszinated, because I like your approach to minimize chemicals and toxic procedures to a minimum. I think that is the right way to go for any homerefiner. Will there be a video on your centrifuge and how it works? I have yet not fully understood how and at which point you reduce the material to a concentrate. A vid would be helpful in understanding this better. Hope to read some yields one day as well... Thumps up on your report!



Thanks Marcel, the high speed rotating bowel multiplies g-force by 600 times, the heavier fractions force out the lighter ones replacing them in the grooves machined into the bowel. The banding of copper indicates that I'm coming to an end of the precious metals collecting inside the bowel.

The lighter fractions are discarded over the top of the bowel along with the water which is used as a carrier to transport.


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## rusty

First run 10.25 lbs the bowel recovered 85.6 grams of concentrates. 

Total 65 grams recovered, HCL leach indicates base metals present.

Conclusion, not enough waste material in the feedstock, from 10.25 lbs of chips. Either do larger batches or add waste to compensate.

This has not yet been treated with acids, from the incineration you can see some oxides forming on the sides of the dish.

Previously the color of copper showing up in the bowel was a good indicator when to quit, when the cons show only black. The concentrated metals cling like jam to the spoon I use to clean out the bowel - no jam - no values - time to quit.

Also I might add filtering the cons goes a lot quicker water just seems to soak right in and through, additional rinses even faster. I'm not saying lighting quick but much faster than dealing with mud.


----------



## rusty

I apologize for my rude behavior in the beginning of this thread, I really thought you guys were holding back.

This Pilot is being tested at 9 G's, imagine how he would look at 600 G's the force of which my centrifuge generates.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9d_PK6pWNo[/youtube]


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I had some material, that had some small gold foils and tiny flakes of gold, mixed in with many other metal powders, much like some of the materials you are centrifuging, just for the fun of it I thought I would try and pan a small sample, what I noticed is the material would not separate by panning very well at all, the fine gold powders and foils are just moved along by the other material, the gold is also so fine it will float around in the water, sometimes almost easier than some of the less denser metal powders.



Perfect material for the centrifuge.



butcher said:


> I do not know if the centrifuge, would have the same trouble as I seen in the pan, but I think it possibly could have, I think it would be interesting to make a small controlled experiment, taking some very fine gold foils, powders and so on, and weigh them, mix them with a little of your sludge material, in the consistency, you normally have, then run it through the centrifuge, and see what you recover back, also testing the solution that floated out of the pot, who knows floating the gold with froth floatation and centrifuging at the same time (probably at a lower speed may also prove to be a way to recover).



At 600 G's that gold is going into the groove, the gold coming from the ball mill you can not see it with the naked eye. 

Floatation is very good at recovering fine gold but the process requires more equipment and chemicals in addition a much larger footprint.



butcher said:


> P.S. the screen in the skillet, I really like that tip, on second look that may just be a plastic strainer that looked like a skillet to me in your picture, I have been having a lot of trouble drying material for incineration, taking a long time at low heat to dry out the liquid in a corning dish, as the material will bubble and spit if heat is raised too high to fast, it can take all day on warm before it is dry enough to raise the heat, the screen holding the majority of the material off of the bottom may just be an answer, this way the liquids below could be raised to a higher temperature, steaming through the material held above in the screen, any spitting would stay in the pot better, once more dry they could be crushed through the stainless steel screen to the bottom of the pan ready to raise the heat and incinerated.



Problem solved, from 10.25 lbs of chips, I ended up with 125 grams of concentrates which came out with just enough moisture to cling like jam. 

The heavy fractions collecting in the centrifuge bowel squeeze out the water displacing water in the grooves. The water is recycled.

I dried and incinerated that 125 grams of cons in a quartz dish and there was no plastic or resins to burn off.


----------



## rusty

An early example of a centrifugal energy at work a sling, I tried one made from an old boot tongue and boot laces, but could not master it.

The oldest known, surviving, slings -- radiocarbon dated to ca. 2500 BC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon)


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## skippy

Awesome seeing the copper band! I'm impressed, this machine seems very effective and versatile. 
I would seriously consider having an assay done on some of the different fractions from this process, especially if you think you might keep processing in this manner with this material.


I would have the concentrates assayed, I would keep collecting the coppery fraction and have that assayed,
then i would have the rest of the irony and non metal residues assayed, either before or after dissolving the base metals, keeping a record of how much base metals were dissolved too.

Then when you did this stuff in the future you would have a good idea of what you can expect and where it will be. Then you'll know what to save, what to throw out, maybe what to process or further concentrate. Otherwise it's kind of like fumbling in the dark. That's what I found when I was investigating cats and extractions - that until I had assays done, I had no clue what I started with, how complete my extraction was, etc. It was the best money I spent in the whole deal, because I knew exactly where I stood with confidence in a matter of a week or two from mailing my samples.


----------



## skippy

I looked up a category I remember seeing in the past on internet scrap market price lists called 'mixed IC scrap' Truckload quantities are supposedly worth $33.69 a pound. http://www.scrapindex.com/electronics/usa/computer_electronics/index.html
I have no idea what that means, hopefully you can recover an amount something in keeping with this value.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> Awesome seeing the copper band! I'm impressed, this machine seems very effective and versatile.
> I would seriously consider having an assay done on some of the different fractions from this process, especially if you think you might keep processing in this manner with this material.



We know what metals to expect from chips, also I rely on specific gravity along with the constancy of the concentrates being collected in the bowel which are clingy like jam all other material does not have the tendency to cling or become stringy.



skippy said:


> I would have the concentrates assayed, I would keep collecting the coppery fraction and have that assayed,
> then i would have the rest of the irony and non metal residues assayed, either before or after dissolving the base metals, keeping a record of how much base metals were dissolved too.



No need to have the concentrates assayed, during the AR process stannous will let me know what I have. The left overs after AR need to be assayed. 

Send the tailings as low grade sweeps to a refinery.



skippy said:


> Then when you did this stuff in the future you would have a good idea of what you can expect and where it will be. Then you'll know what to save, what to throw out, maybe what to process or further concentrate. Otherwise it's kind of like fumbling in the dark. That's what I found when I was investigating cats and extractions - that until I had assays done, I had no clue what I started with, how complete my extraction was, etc. It was the best money I spent in the whole deal, because I knew exactly where I stood with confidence in a matter of a week or two from mailing my samples.



IMO theres no comparison between cats and chips, cats deteriorate with poor fuel, mileage and driving conditions while a chips can become non functional but the metals inside remain unchanged.

If any forum member wants to step up to the plate and pay for an assay, I'll gladly donate the sample and pay the postage.

And here's another offer, anyone wants to ship me a minimum 60 lbs of mixed chips,I will ball mill and concentrate these for free then ship the cons back for you to do as you wish. This offer stands good for one member only and must be before May 2013. 

In future the centrifuge is the only way I would consider going, there are some improvements that could be made to the experimental centrifuge as it was rather hurriedly tossed together. I've learned from it and I hope some of you have also learned something from it.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> I looked up a category I remember seeing in the past on internet scrap market price lists called 'mixed IC scrap' Truckload quantities are supposedly worth $33.69 a pound. http://www.scrapindex.com/electronics/usa/computer_electronics/index.html
> I have no idea what that means, hopefully you can recover an amount something in keeping with this value.



Awesome, thanks Skippy.


----------



## skippy

I agree that the concentrates aren't as important to have assayed. They are likely effectively treatable by a combination of washes, acid boils, AR, etc. to get your recovery. The part I would be most interested in is in how much PM ends up in the gangue, it seems to me that if soft gold bonding wire gets smeared by a ball mill onto another particle, it won't necessarily separate out in the centrifuge. There's bound to be gold outside of the concentrates, it's just a question of how much. 

Is anyone up for chipping in (hahaha) on an assay for some of Rusty's stuff? I'd be glad to put in a little bit. Say, don't the members here from ol' Blighty get cheap assays as a government service?


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> I agree that the concentrates aren't as important to have assayed. They are likely effectively treatable by a combination of washes, acid boils, AR, etc. to get your recovery. The part I would be most interested in is in how much PM ends up in the gangue, it seems to me that if soft gold bonding wire gets smeared by a ball mill onto another particle, it won't necessarily separate out in the centrifuge. There's bound to be gold outside of the concentrates, it's just a question of how much.
> 
> Is anyone up for chipping in (hahaha) on an assay for some of Rusty's stuff? I'd be glad to put in a little bit. Say, don't the members here from ol' Blighty get cheap assays as a government service?



If I process the ash until the centrifuge bowel is filling 100 percent copper, you'll not find much if anything of value in the gangue.

Go back and take a look at the picture where the copper had begun to band inside the bowel, it's very evident that values were being passed over to tailings. 

This was purposely done to eliminate the amount of copper being added into my high grade concentrates - yes I have to run the tailings one more time, whatever is captured on the next round will require less acids to clean up.

I think you guys would be wasting good hard earned money for an assay of the tailings, which are destined to ship as low grade sweeps to a refinery.

My conscience would bother me to even offer the tailings for sale.

As were all aware the nickel barrier keeps the gold from migrating into the copper, and that my copper tailings do merit further investigation. Due the amount of copper present this material would make the perfect anode for a parting cell. The scrap yard I deal with does purchase my copper cathodes as number 2 copper.


----------



## rusty

Everyone is concerned with how well my centrifuge works.

Send me 20 to 40 lbs of your spent IC chip waste ( dry ) I'll run your waste through the centrifuge to see if you missed any values.

I'll even mail the concentrates back to you.

Limited Offer, any packages coming from the US must be marked as low grade waste below a $20.00 value via USPS as I will not pay Customs Duty nor Brokerage Fees.

You pay to ship, I'll pay the return on any cons recovered.


----------



## nickvc

We don't get cheap assays because of the government but we do get cheap assays compared to what members from the US pay. 
I'll happily sort out an assay for you Rusty when you have run all your materials but make sure you have got a good representative sample of the whole, you will need around 20-50 grams and post it straight to the lads I use, Guardian Laboratories here in the UK.


----------



## rusty

nickvc said:


> We don't get cheap assays because of the government but we do get cheap assays compared to what members from the US pay.
> I'll happily sort out an assay for you Rusty when you have run all your materials but make sure you have got a good representative sample of the whole, you will need around 20-50 grams and post it straight to the lads I use, Guardian Laboratories here in the UK.



Thanks nickvc we Canadians appreciate a bargain. I'll want an assay from my leftovers from the AR.

You may take note of the float gold bottom right hand side, the centrifuge catches all.

Here's a small sampling from the 10.25 Lbs of chips.

Well guys and gals, I've said about all there is to say on this topic, hope you all enjoyed the trip.


----------



## Barren Realms 007

rusty said:


> nickvc said:
> 
> 
> 
> We don't get cheap assays because of the government but we do get cheap assays compared to what members from the US pay.
> I'll happily sort out an assay for you Rusty when you have run all your materials but make sure you have got a good representative sample of the whole, you will need around 20-50 grams and post it straight to the lads I use, Guardian Laboratories here in the UK.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks nickvc we Canadians appreciate a bargain. I'll want an assay from my leftovers from the AR.
> 
> You may take note of the float gold bottom right hand side, the centrifuge catches all.
> 
> Here's a small sampling from the 10.25 Lbs of chips.
> 
> Well guys and gals, I've said about all there is to say on this topic, hope you all enjoyed the trip.
Click to expand...


Oh no your not getting off that easy. 8) 

Your not finished till we find out what the final results are.  

You still have more to post. :lol:


----------



## srlaulis

Whaaa?!?! I'm with Barren. Not so fast.


----------



## rusty

The data collected would not be truthful as I had added the sweeps from the ball mill to this 10.25 lb lot currently being processed.

Patnor has already given yield data on what to expect from IC's.

Best Regards
Gill aka rusty


----------



## resabed01

rusty said:


> And here's another offer, anyone wants to ship me a minimum 60 lbs of mixed chips,I will ball mill and concentrate these for free then ship the cons back for you to do as you wish. This offer stands good for one member only and must be before May 2013.




Rusty,

I'd take you up on your offer to crush and con my chips but I only have about 10Kg so far.


----------



## rusty

resabed01 said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> And here's another offer, anyone wants to ship me a minimum 60 lbs of mixed chips,I will ball mill and concentrate these for free then ship the cons back for you to do as you wish. This offer stands good for one member only and must be before May 2013.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rusty,
> 
> I'd take you up on your offer to crush and con my chips but I only have about 10Kg so far.
Click to expand...


PM Sent,,,,  10 kg is fine, and we will consider the offer taken and no longer available.

Now if someone would like to send a fairly decent sample of spent material, to run through the centrifuge. Same deal I'll mail you back the cons on my nickel.

I'm going to start a new thread for the " IC cons for resabed01 " were we can post package tracking numbers and the process from both ends.

The new thread is located here, http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=17717


----------



## nickvc

Gill I'm with the guys here, I suspect you will recover considerable values and the final pictures of the bars may well spur others to try to be as inventive and ingenious as you to recover more of the values by similar methods. My offer will still stand but I'd like you to make a donation on behalf of both of us to the forum if my feelings are right. I would also suggest not assaying your treated cons as a simple re run through weak AR and testing with stannous should prove if any values remain but on the material ejected by your centrifuge which will be the bulk to test how effective your process is, perhaps another run through the centrifuge with a mixed small sample and then test the cons again would be advisable to see if it can capture more of the values if any are left. The sampling when done on the waste needs to be as representative as possible so drying, mixing and plenty of various samples from within the pile, remember this material may well be off to a refiner to recover what's left so knowing what's there is essential to protect your money.


----------



## rusty

nickvc said:


> Gill I'm with the guys here, I suspect you will recover considerable values and the final pictures of the bars may well spur others to try to be as inventive and ingenious as you to recover more of the values by similar methods. My offer will still stand but I'd like you to make a donation on behalf of both of us to the forum if my feelings are right. I would also suggest not assaying your treated cons as a simple re run through weak AR and testing with stannous should prove if any values remain but on the material ejected by your centrifuge which will be the bulk to test how effective your process is, perhaps another run through the centrifuge with a mixed small sample and then test the cons again would be advisable to see if it can capture more of the values if any are left. The sampling when done on the waste needs to be as representative as possible so drying, mixing and plenty of various samples from within the pile, remember this material may well be off to a refiner to recover what's left so knowing what's there is essential to protect your money.



nickvc I know that my quickly made centrifuge is far from perfect, I run the material 3 to 4 times to make sure I've captured 99% of the precious metals.

The cons from that 10.25 Lbs have stopped reacting to new additions of bleach, hopefully I can post a few pictures tomorrow. 

I have it settling out at the moment and plan to be in the shop within the hour to decant and wash the dreggs preparing for precipitating the gold sometime tomorrow. The wife is driving me crazy, she wants to see gold.

Because I'm using caution extreme by running the material multiple times I do have a bit of unwanted dreggs, I'm guessing 20 grams or less.

While doing some research came across this cool centrifuge, the Gold Kacha. It's primarily made from injection molded plastic so the cost to purchase one of these units should be fairly reasonable. Perhaps it could be purchased without the motor or engine, any lawnmower engine would work.

The Gold Kacha bowel is turning at a slow 100 RPM, if I knew to diameter could figure out the G-Force it generates. I somehow suspect its much lower than my experimental unit. 

Also the design of the bowel could be improved upon, when they decided to use injection molding they had to make compromises in order to release the mold from the die.

The manufacture still recommends to use a table to high grade your concentrates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gT5bxpfjvrM


----------



## rusty

Leach liquor from that 10.25 lbs of chips, judging by the color I would say there's a bit of palladium present.

Shock, the last addition of bleach did not react so I had assumed the leach was ready to filter, filtered off the clear liquids then came in for a break went back out and the mud was bubbling. So I added new HCL, back outdoors where my reactions take place to add fresh bleach.

Glad I caught it instead of discarding the mud as trash. 

What I've learned here is that I much rather use AR over acid / bleach the volume of liquids is phenomenal using bleach.


----------



## Barren Realms 007

Excellent job you are doing.


----------



## srlaulis

This is, by far, one of the best threads I have read!


----------



## glondor

Rusty, you may be able to extrapolate the bowl dimension from this drawing from gold katchas site. http://aptprocessing.opendrive.com/files/NV8zNjkzNTZfVE8wRk9fZWUxOQ/Gold%20Kacha%20Spec%20Sheet.pdf

According to this, it may be only about 4.5 g http://www.endmemo.com/bio/grpm.php


----------



## rusty

glondor said:


> Rusty, you may be able to extrapolate the bowl dimension from this drawing from gold katchas site. http://aptprocessing.opendrive.com/files/NV8zNjkzNTZfVE8wRk9fZWUxOQ/Gold%20Kacha%20Spec%20Sheet.pdf
> 
> According to this, it may be only about 4.5 g http://www.endmemo.com/bio/grpm.php



Thanks glondor, a friend of mine Don Bremner was building centrifuges so I'm not totally new to them then I spent well over a month researching the centrifuge before attempting my own build which differs from Don's design but the principal remains.

What I write here from my pulpit is to preach the advantages, once you guys catch the bug you'll will become my competitors, I'll no longer have a monopoly on my genius :mrgreen: 

For you acid bleach users don't let the freezing cold weather stop you, last night was my best ever when the bucket froze over with a thin layer of ice keeping the chlorine intact. Now we know why lasersteve covered his cat comb with a lid, this was not to keep the chlorine stink from the neighbors but to keep the vessel concentrated with the gas.

In fact the acid / bleach method is the perfect choice for gold weather leaching.


----------



## rusty

After settling overnight it's looking good and I still have more to add from that 10.25 lbs.


----------



## Barren Realms 007

Looking good. Have you tested it with stannus yet?


----------



## rusty

Barren Realms 007 said:


> Looking good. Have you tested it with stannus yet?



Stannous would only tell me what I already know, that there is gold in solution. 

You can bet that I'll be testing my solution after the gold drop, the way I see it, assuming the gold precipitation is complete I'll then have one less color to deal with on my stannous test.

On a side note has anyone ever done a gold drop from an acid / bleach leach using oxalic acid. I asked lasersteve about it and his reply is that he sees no reason why it would not.

Ok, I have oxalic acid and some sodium hydroxide, but no way at the moment to test my Ph unless the pool care or the nitrate test strips would work.

I'll need some spoon feeding ( help ) on this guys.


----------



## FrugalRefiner

rusty,

Santa brought me some pH test strips for Christmas that I put in my Amazon wish list. I didn't see the same listing, but I found this listing for $3.07 plus 0.99 shipping. pH range from 1 to 14.

Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Packs-Paper-Litmus-Strips-Tester/dp/B008IBOG7G/ref=pd_sbs_indust_3

Dave


----------



## Barren Realms 007

There is not enough range in the pool test kit to test the PH accurately.


----------



## rusty

FrugalRefiner said:


> rusty,
> 
> Santa brought me some pH test strips for Christmas that I put in my Amazon wish list. I didn't see the same listing, but I found this listing for $3.07 plus 0.99 shipping. pH range from 1 to 14.
> 
> Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Packs-Paper-Litmus-Strips-Tester/dp/B008IBOG7G/ref=pd_sbs_indust_3
> 
> Dave



Thanks, just purchased full range strips from a UK seller, they'll get here promptly.

This will give the much needed time to off gas any excess chlorine.

I"m also thinking maybe evaporate the solutions down, or do you guys figure it would be difficult to precipitate the gold from a concentrated solution.

The leach working that 6 lb batch is quickly adding up, there's almost a full 20 liters to deal with.


----------



## skippy

It's a pretty clean looking solution - very nice. The chlorine should be able to be driven off just by heating to near boiling for a while, I don't think you need to evaporate a large portion of the solution.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> It's a pretty clean looking solution - very nice. The chlorine should be able to be driven off just by heating to near boiling for a while, I don't think you need to evaporate a large portion of the solution.



Thanks skippy, the clear one has been off gassing just from the heat of the sun, this one below has been on the camp stove on a frying pan filled with sand.

Too much time on my hands, decided to take a few readings with that hydrometer I bought awhile back. The first bucket is my acid / bleach which reads a specific gravity of 70, the other pail is my HCL wash pre-leach with a specif gravity of 35. Not sure if I learned anything new here, when I have the gold chloride in a vessel large enough I'll take a reading from it.

What I'm interested in is by keeping records if I'm able to calculate the gold concentration.

I can not believe I did this too you guys, this has to be the most boring video on the net, the insoluble material settles out quick. I suspect were watching tantalum settle out, this is the stuff I want assayed.

Eighteen minutes to settle out. 



[youtube] http://youtu.be/Cb2ojhk_K9o [/youtube]


----------



## rusty

Time to stock up the laboratory with reagents. 


TEST NO.
53: Tantalum - T a .

General Information
Tantalite is the main ore of tantalum; columbite is the main ore of columbium; each contains
both elements; if either one present it should always be assayed for both. If an ore contains more
tantalum than columbium it is called tantalite; if more columbium than tantalum it is called c o l -
umbite. Both look just like common black or brown iron ore; no doubt much overlooked for this
reason - only a chemical test will tell.

Both ores are exceedingly heavy; columbite, specific gravity, 5.5 to 7; tantalite 6 . 5 to 7 . 3 .
(common iron ores usually less than 5). All heavy iron-looking rocks should be tested. For columbium
see Test 29. The following tests will show a reaction for either one or both. Tantalite, if pure might:
contain as high as 86% tantalum pentoxide; the balance made up of various percentages of columbium,
iron, manganese and other impurities. Tantalite and columbite are usually found in pegmatite format-
ions associated with feldspar and mica.
TESTS
1. Use powdered mineral equal to about two grains of rice.
2. Mix with potassium pyrosulphate equal to large navy bean.
3. Place on piece broken plate. (May be on charcoal but it sinks in badly and thus hard to
remove after fusing).
4. Fuse in reducing flame of blowpipe until fusion stops, then turn over and fuse until assay turns
5. Pulverize fusion in porcelain mortar (to use later on).
(dark.
6. Place one or two cc of water in a clean test tube.
7. Add tannic acid powder about size of two grains of rice.
8. Shake well until all the powder has been dissolved.
9. Add 6 drops of strong sulphuric acid. (Shake to mix).
10. Now add the powdered fusion ( 5 above).
11. Heat, just to boiling; let set until cold.
RESULTS: A yellow or orange precipitate if much tantalum or columbium present, NOTE:
Iron and some other elements may give similar precipitate; proceed as follows.
12. Let set until precipitate has settled to bottom of tube.
RESULTS: Almost a colorless solution unless much iron or other impurities present, then may be
yellow solution.
13. Shake tube and pour solution and precipitate into a clean evaporating dish; rinse tube with little
water into dish.
14. Place dish over lamp flame and boil just to dry.
15. Add 2 cc strong hydrochloric acid; boil for short t i m e .
16. Add 1 or 2 small pieces of tinfoil; boil until solution changes color - colorless or blue.
RESULTS: A blue solution indicates columbium or tantalum. Color may or may not show up
until solution is cold or longer; may show plainer by adding a very little powdered zinc.
' NOTE: Tungsten will also give blue solution in this test, but no yellow or orange precipitate as
in results 11 above. Confirm tungsten by Test 3, "Method of Procedure", Part Two.


----------



## rusty

Gravity fed filter to polish my gold chloride, the filter paper will filter out to 5 microns.

Still have to drill my holes into the bottom, i use a short piece of ABS for a template to mark the filter paper were I'm going to cut. When cutting, cut just on the outside of the pencil line so that the paper makes a nice snug fit.

Later on I'll take a piece of steel pipe then make a die to cut my filter papers to the correct size.

To hold the filter in place, I'll cut a slot the same diameter as the ABS into some ply board, you'll note that I have glued some scrap pieces of ABS onto the pipe, this will hold the filter from falling into the pail.


----------



## skippy

Rusty,

I just talked a little bit about the filter i built in the thread about pretreating chips. If you can put a few pounds of air above your liquid things go a lot faster, especially once the head pressure from the liquid decreases. It might help,and sometimes I find the more time I have the more impatient I am. When there's other things to do, I'm content to throw a wick in the bucket, and come back in a couple days. If I have nothing else to do, I want my solution now! :lol:


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> Rusty,
> 
> I just talked a little bit about the filter i built in the thread about pretreating chips. If you can put a few pounds of air above your liquid things go a lot faster, especially once the head pressure from the liquid decreases. It might help,and sometimes I find the more time I have the more impatient I am. When there's other things to do, I'm content to throw a wick in the bucket, and come back in a couple days. If I have nothing else to do, I want my solution now! :lol:




Skippy, I very often use wicking for large dirty sample, the wick works very good.

I did my rough filtering last evening, multiple coffee filters then let my gold chloride settle out overnight now it's time to polish that using a 5 micron filter. And there's a reason I choose gravity or forced filtration.

After my gold precipitation, I'll follow Harold's wash recipe to a " T "

From the many gold buttons I've seen, not many pass as fine gold. I'm shooting for a crystalline finish with a nice pipe on my wee button.


----------



## srlaulis

Rusty, are you going to show us the final cleanup of the 10.25 pounds of concentrates?


----------



## rusty

srlaulis said:


> Rusty, are you going to show us the final cleanup of the 10.25 pounds of concentrates?



That is the plan, I''m planning to precipitate the gold tomorrow so that my partner Pat is able to watch her gold appear from a liquid.

2/3rds of a Canadian gallon ( 160 fluid ounces ) nice and clear.]

The hydrometer reads SG 50 on the gold chloride and the leach outside has gained from SG 70 to SG 80


----------



## rusty

Pat is still waiting for her gold to appear.

Ok guys what went wrong after the SMB addition, no gold or to much chlorine.


----------



## ericrm

Rusty ... what does stannous chloride say?


----------



## rusty

ericrm said:


> Rusty ... what does stannous chloride say?



Says that I've wasted my time.


----------



## ericrm

by the way ic have given me a lot of that kind of fun too ...

im pretty sure you didnt trow away your leached material, right? 
if the gold was there in the beginning it should still be there. 

i will return reading the post and edit my message later

on one of the picture you have a blue bol and what looklike to be gold powder in it ,have you taked a sample of just the yellow powder to make sure it was gold?if not do you have acces to some? and can you confirm with AR/stannous chloride that it is actualy gold?

what did you actually leach ? you talk about finger/chip/burned ic/pulverized ic. be specific

how did you removed base metal? did you only do hcl/cl on everything?

i see that color of solution changed maybe you just need to wait a little longuer.


----------



## srlaulis

Rusty,

I'd say too much chlorine could be the issue. You may want to heat the liquid to under a boil for about an hour and test with stannous again. I believe the access chlorine may interfere with your test, but if I am wrong, someone please jump in.

Steven


----------



## ericrm

srlaulis
i speak for myself, chlorine often refrain precipitation of gold and make stannous result disapear after a little time but i never had chlorine stop a stannous test.


----------



## rusty

srlaulis said:


> Rusty,
> 
> I'd say too much chlorine could be the issue. You may want to heat the liquid to under a boil for about an hour and test with stannous again. I believe the access chlorine may interfere with your test, but if I am wrong, someone please jump in.
> 
> Steven



Give the man a cigar, wished i knew more about chemistry.

Anyhow with a small addition of SMB the sulfur dioxide reacted with the chlorine turning my liquid to that nice apple green which I suspect indicates there's platinum in solution the as well the gold. Palladium along with silver had it been present would have been removed during the nitric wash.

Here's a short video of the reaction, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr_ToWwCUPI&feature=youtu.be

I did not stir the liquid but let it naturally dissipate the chlorine, there was no smell, then I let it set for 20 minutes before adding more SMB. This time we have a gold flush.


----------



## rusty

After decanting the HCL / Bleach leach, once again washing the dreggs into the filter saw that there is some values left over that this leach is having trouble with.

Rather than add more acid and bleach made a switch over to a more aggressive leach - AR. 

Coffee crafts a love hate relationship, mine cracked. Luckily there's no loss of values. The AR and crud was transferred into a crock pot, the AR is a beautiful green, probably one of the platinum sisters - platinum.


----------



## skippy

Sorry Rusty, that green says nickel to me, not platinum or palladium. It may be masking the colour of gold in solution, and or you still may have gold in your cons.
I know we'll get to the bottom of things, if you incinerated a tonne of decent computer circuit boards (am I right?) you have likely 3-10 oz of gold lurking in the various materials you have.
Don't do anything rash and if you feel like you're lost give us a run down on exactly what you've done so far as far as what's gone in to this batch, how it was washed, was it hcl boiled, nitric boiled, etc. You might need to reincinerate some of your materials, do nitric leaches again, hcl leaches, and then hit it with AR again. Depending on the temperature that you did it at, I think you might have melted significant values into your metallics in your incineration. 

You've got so many variables in this complicated leach of a complicated material from a complicated process, that if you are expecting a grand slam on your first swing, you're expecting a miracle! Anyways once again, we'll get to the bottom of this


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> Sorry Rusty, that green says nickel to me, not platinum or palladium. It may be masking the colour of gold in solution, and or you still may have gold in your cons.
> I know we'll get to the bottom of things, if you incinerated a tonne of decent computer circuit boards (am I right?) you have likely 3-10 oz of gold lurking in the various materials here.
> Don't do anything rash and if you feel like you're lost give us a run down on exactly what you've done so far as far as what's gone in to this batch, how it was washed, was it hcl boiled, nitric boiled, etc. You might need to reincinerate some of your materials, do nitric leaches again, hcl leaches, n and then hit it with AR again. Depending on the temperature that you did it at, I think you might have melted significant values in your incineration.
> You've got so many variables in this complicated leach of a complicated material from a complicated process, that if you are expecting a grand slam on your first swing, you're expecting a miracle!




I'll have my eyeballs tomorrow, fresh stannous.

What I should have said is that the obvious values left behind from the acid bleach leach are from the platinum group.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> Sorry Rusty, that green says nickel to me, not platinum or palladium. It may be masking the colour of gold in solution, and or you still may have gold in your cons.
> I know we'll get to the bottom of things, if you incinerated a tonne of decent computer circuit boards (am I right?) you have likely 3-10 oz of gold lurking in the various materials you have.
> Don't do anything rash and if you feel like you're lost give us a run down on exactly what you've done so far as far as what's gone in to this batch, how it was washed, was it hcl boiled, nitric boiled, etc. You might need to reincinerate some of your materials, do nitric leaches again, hcl leaches, and then hit it with AR again. Depending on the temperature that you did it at, I think you might have melted significant values into your metallics in your incineration.
> 
> You've got so many variables in this complicated leach of a complicated material from a complicated process, that if you are expecting a grand slam on your first swing, you're expecting a miracle! Anyways once again, we'll get to the bottom of this



Your right nickel in chloride is a nice apple green, and every solution showing green in color should be suspect of holding values.

Dissolve nickel in sulfuric acid as a sulfide and the color is much different, I would have supplied a picture but that particular sample is currently covered with a layer of ice. Instead will give this URL with a number of pictures, http://www.public.asu.edu/~jpbirk/nickel/nickel_two.html

The large lot of cons did come from a ton of scrap, I can see know that the centrifuge is not enough to separate the heavy fractions and that a shaker table is needed to polish the fractions in the concentrates.

I'm debating with myself at the moment wither to build a shaker table or purchase this cool reactor off of ebay.

The reactor equipped with the stirring apparatus would get around the problem of leaching those metals that tend to hide under a layer of other heavy fractions in the leach while the table would eliminate those heavy fractions before being introduced into the leach.

Table would cost next to nil to build as I have the time and most of the stuff needed laying on the floor of my shop, then I think the reactor with it's list of many potential uses makes it more versatile and would be fun to play with.

The reactor is jacketed and uses hot water to heat the contents, my waste oil boiler costs next to nothing to run, over the winter it heated my shop, the house is electrically heated our last energy bill was only $200.00 during to colder month $300.00 tops. When I've finished buying toys will plumb some of that hot water to the house for heat.

Back to the problem at hand, the cons from the 10.25 lbs is going rather slowly because of the overlaying heavy fractions and it requires constant stirring which the wife refuse to do and if you've ever tried to train a Jack Russell you know that these dogs do not participate in doggy type tricks. 

Which leaves me to the tedious task, on occasion I go out and give it a stir, then also I'm not using heat.


----------



## butcher

Why not just fix up a stir table small fan motor mounted under the table with a hard drive magnet glued onto a spinning plate mounted to motor shaft, get a cow magnet seal in heat shrink tubing.

Wrap around heating blanket,to warm the solution.

My vote is that shaker table getting ready for that mining adventure later.

Reaction vessel it is nice, but you can put one of those together any time, with a few pieces of glass ware.


----------



## necromancer

butcher said:


> Why not just fix up a stir table small fan motor mounted under the table with a hard drive magnet glued onto a spinning plate mounted to motor shaft, get a cow magnet seal in heat shrink tubing.
> 
> Wrap around heating blanket,to warm the solution.
> 
> My vote is that shaker table getting ready for that mining adventure later.
> 
> Reaction vessel it is nice, but you can put one of those together any time, with a few pieces of glass ware.



Butcher, this is a great idea.

would you post instructions ??


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> Why not just fix up a stir table small fan motor mounted under the table with a hard drive magnet glued onto a spinning plate mounted to motor shaft, get a cow magnet seal in heat shrink tubing.
> 
> Wrap around heating blanket,to warm the solution.
> 
> My vote is that shaker table getting ready for that mining adventure later.
> 
> Reaction vessel it is nice, but you can put one of those together any time, with a few pieces of glass ware.



By the time I sourced out the various bits of glass ware needed then shipping and hassles over possible breakage i figure buying the turn key reactor properly packaged is a very good buy.

The 20 liter reactor would be good for processing legs and pins in large volume, extract the values then cement the copper which my scrap yard will purchase as number 2. So it's not all about gold.

I may build the table anyhow just for something to do, the files below are a good read with instructions to build a table.


----------



## butcher

I thought I did describe it, and drew a picture of it in the description; you just have to read what I wrote above, and close your eyes to see it.

If your imagination does not work like mine maybe this will help.

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&biw=1024&bih=570&sclient=psy-ab&q=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&oq=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&gs_l=hp.12...1382.30513.0.46460.43.39.2.1.1.2.1481.14610.0j15j13j1j1j3j3j3.39.0...0.0...1c.1.7.psy-ab.n3w5Qw4amlk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44158598,d.cGE&fp=459c9234ee5565df

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FMTWMvDs5e4

http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Stirring-Mug-using-Lego/




Here is one more idea, you can use your imagination on. 
Seeing the spinning liquid made me think of, a the spinning liquid can act like the centrifuge, heavier material will accumulate in the center at the bottom of the vessel, what if we could fix the magnet on a suspended shaft, and have a catch basin in the bottom center of our vessel to catch these heavier values like fine gold, maybe even a funnel with a dump valve.
What I am thinking, of is something similar how the centrifuge or blue bowel, works,
Something like the old mining trick of the five gallon bucket where you drill a 2”hole in the bottom center for a plastic plumbing cap to sit in, add the screened fines with water in the bucket, stir the heck out of it with a stick a couple of times, (a paint stirrer on a drill also works for the stir stick), and spinning action of the water separates the powders by density, and the centrifugal action deposits the fine gold in solution in the plumbing cap in the center bottom of the bucket, gold being heavier fills the plumbing plug cap first then lighter sand settles on top, and after gold other sand in the bucket settle you reach down under the sand remove the plastic plumbing cap, letting the water and sand drain from this bucket into another bucket, then panning the fine gold powder that collected in the pluming cap.


----------



## rusty

butcher said:


> I thought I did describe it, and drew a picture of it in the description; you just have to read what I wrote above, and close your eyes to see it.
> 
> If your imagination does not work like mine maybe this will help.
> 
> https://www.google.com/#hl=en&biw=1024&bih=570&sclient=psy-ab&q=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&oq=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&gs_l=hp.12...1382.30513.0.46460.43.39.2.1.1.2.1481.14610.0j15j13j1j1j3j3j3.39.0...0.0...1c.1.7.psy-ab.n3w5Qw4amlk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44158598,d.cGE&fp=459c9234ee5565df
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FMTWMvDs5e4
> 
> http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Stirring-Mug-using-Lego/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is one more idea, you can use your imagination on.
> Seeing the spinning liquid made me think of, a the spinning liquid can act like the centrifuge, heavier material will accumulate in the center at the bottom of the vessel, what if we could fix the magnet on a suspended shaft, and have a catch basin in the bottom center of our vessel to catch these heavier values like fine gold, maybe even a funnel with a dump valve.
> What I am thinking, of is something similar how the centrifuge or blue bowel, works,
> Something like the old mining trick of the five gallon bucket where you drill a 2”hole in the bottom center for a plastic plumbing cap to sit in, add the screened fines with water in the bucket, stir the heck out of it with a stick a couple of times, (a paint stirrer on a drill also works for the stir stick), and spinning action of the water separates the powders by density, and the centrifugal action deposits the fine gold in solution in the plumbing cap in the center bottom of the bucket, gold being heavier fills the plumbing plug cap first then lighter sand settles on top, and after gold other sand in the bucket settle you reach down under the sand remove the plastic plumbing cap, letting the water and sand drain from this bucket into another bucket, then panning the fine gold powder that collected in the pluming cap.



All are good ideas, trouble here is using Acid Bleach leach where you want to keep the chlorine gas in your leach as long as possible.

It's a nice day out so I'm stirring more often, then in between time tearing down some POS terminals I picked up yesterday.

Maybe have some goods to sell on ebay from the laser scanners, I sell the power supply and laser tubes.


----------



## modtheworld44

butcher said:


> I thought I did describe it, and drew a picture of it in the description; you just have to read what I wrote above, and close your eyes to see it.
> 
> If your imagination does not work like mine maybe this will help.
> 
> https://www.google.com/#hl=en&biw=1024&bih=570&sclient=psy-ab&q=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&oq=home+made+chemical+magnetic+stir+motor&gs_l=hp.12...1382.30513.0.46460.43.39.2.1.1.2.1481.14610.0j15j13j1j1j3j3j3.39.0...0.0...1c.1.7.psy-ab.n3w5Qw4amlk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44158598,d.cGE&fp=459c9234ee5565df
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FMTWMvDs5e4
> 
> http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Stirring-Mug-using-Lego/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is one more idea, you can use your imagination on.
> Seeing the spinning liquid made me think of, a the spinning liquid can act like the centrifuge, heavier material will accumulate in the center at the bottom of the vessel, what if we could fix the magnet on a suspended shaft, and have a catch basin in the bottom center of our vessel to catch these heavier values like fine gold, maybe even a funnel with a dump valve.
> What I am thinking, of is something similar how the centrifuge or blue bowel, works,
> Something like the old mining trick of the five gallon bucket where you drill a 2”hole in the bottom center for a plastic plumbing cap to sit in, add the screened fines with water in the bucket, stir the heck out of it with a stick a couple of times, (a paint stirrer on a drill also works for the stir stick), and spinning action of the water separates the powders by density, and the centrifugal action deposits the fine gold in solution in the plumbing cap in the center bottom of the bucket, gold being heavier fills the plumbing plug cap first then lighter sand settles on top, and after gold other sand in the bucket settle you reach down under the sand remove the plastic plumbing cap, letting the water and sand drain from this bucket into another bucket, then panning the fine gold powder that collected in the pluming cap.



butcher

I actually just use a 1liter mountain dew bottle.I cut the bottom of the bottle off leaving the lid screwed on,then just flip it on its lid and fill it 1/2-3/4 full of incinerated IC powder and the rest water with big squirt of dishwashing liquid.I give it two good stirs let it settle then take and slow stir it just enough to allow me to push stir rod down into the neck a good five or six times.Then I decant slowly till theres about 5-10ml of fluid left (this depends on how much powder you decide to put in),now just slowly unscrew the lid and let just the complete nose of material drain to lid.I do this part over my gold pan and have a catch pan right net to it ,so that as soon as the nose has drained I can quickly transfer the rest to catch pan.Then I check whats in my gold pan and then dump it in a holding bowl,so when I get done with all my powders I can rerun my cons and just keep getting rid of more and more ash.When I'm done my cons and what little bit of ash is left will go straight to AR since I will have to refine my gold again.Hope this simple process helps someone out?

P.S I can make one of my boring videos for this if you want me to.



modtheworld44


----------



## skippy

One thing I did when reprocessing some sludges from cat converters was this: I put the sludge in the bottom of a bucket, added ssn, took a plastic garbage bag and taped the opening around the bucket. I then poked a cpvc pipe through the bag and taped the pipe to the bag and used that pipe to stir the contents. Tis keeps the fumes down and slows down fluid evaporation. Meanwhile I was heating the bucket in a water bath in a cut open keg. You can go beyond the temperature rating of the polyethylene bucket because the water bath supports the bucket from deforming and failing. I imagine hot ssn would work pretty well on gold. I couldn't justify buying a fancy apparatus like the one you showed unless I was going to be using it regularly to make money, ssn works better hot, and I suspect the HCl would work better at a a higher temperature than it's getting in early in Manitoba spring :lol:


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> One thing I did when reprocessing some sludges from cat converters was this: I put the sludge in the bottom of a bucket, added ssn, took a plastic garbage bag and taped the opening around the bucket. I then poked a cpvc pipe through the bag and taped the pipe to the bag and used that pipe to stir the contents. Tis keeps the fumes down and slows down fluid evaporation. Meanwhile I was heating the bucket in a water bath in a cut open keg. You can go beyond the temperature rating of the polyethylene bucket because the water bath supports the bucket from deforming and failing. I imagine hot ssn would work pretty well on gold. I couldn't justify buying a fancy apparatus like the one you showed unless I was going to be using it regularly to make money, ssn works better hot, and I suspect the HCl would work better at a a higher temperature than it's getting in early in Manitoba spring :lol:



Right now I'm wishing that I had choose to use SSN and had set up my vessels as a heap leach letting the SSN seep through from top vessel to bottom then recirculating the leach. This would have solved the heavy layer problem.

And I think it was dumb to use acid / bleach for such a large amount of cons especially with the insoluble material present. But hey were all learning from it.

Another thought I had earlier today was to cut rounds from this Polyethylene felt carpet then lay about three layers to the bottom of the pail making space for the acid to work from below. I thought that the gas escaping would kinda recirculate the liquid eventually replacing it with fresh leach.

As for the reactor, once I get an idea into my head I find it hard to shake off. Luckily I do have a few priority's that could exhaust my funds before such a purchase could be made.


----------



## skippy

I think you just need some heat and use aqua regia. How about a small sample, magnetically stirred, heated in AR? Figure out what works on a small scale before jumping in with both feet into something full sized. I've dealt with the same tendencies in myself before, it pays off to start small and work out what you are doing. Especially if you can run multiple experiments. Run your concentrates with HCl-Cl2 cold and warm, try weak AR, strong AR, warm AR, hot AR. etc or whatever you think. You wont lose anything unless you throw it out.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> I think you just need some heat and use aqua regia. How about a small sample, magnetically stirred, heated in AR? Figure out what works on a small scale before jumping in with both feet into something full sized. I've dealt with the same tendencies in myself before, it pays off to start small and work out what you are doing. Especially if you can run multiple experiments. Run your concentrates with HCl-Cl2 cold and warm, try weak AR, strong AR, warm AR, hot AR. etc or whatever you think. You wont lose anything unless you throw it out.




Took a sample of the offending fraction from the 10.25 lb cons lot for a test tube run in hot AR, which takes the sample into solution giving that wonderful gold chloride color.

Second to last test tube extreme right.

Edit to add picture, the test tube top picture after settling out, I suspect the majority of the insolubles is tantalum - assay coming up to confirm.


----------



## rusty

Quote from butcher in another post, thanks butcher the ammonia trick indicates excess chlorine.




butcher said:


> somethings I might try.
> Let it sit over night to settle (if you have not already), decant solution (do not disturb powder), filter the clear solution to a clean vessel, which you can heat, heat the solution, if there is chlorine this will drive it off, you can see if you smell Chlorine or SO2 gas, a test you can try for chlorine pour a little ammonia in a cap from the bottle we do not need much and do not want to spill the ammonia, hold this capful of ammonia in the stream of fumes and vapors from your gold chloride solution, the ammonia will also be releasing gas hence the smell of ammonia from the capful, when these two gases come together if you see a white cloud form it is ammonium chloride gas, ammonia gas and chlorine gas mixing to form a white cloud of ammonium chloride gas, no white cloud, then no chlorine in the gas coming from your solution.


----------



## skippy

Rusty, I would be inclined to melt this with an alkaline oxidizing flux. It would dissolve lead, tin, tantalum and hopefully leave you with a button of some weird gold, silver, nickel and palladium alloy that you could part with nitric acid and then dissolve the gold from. Any seconders from more experienced members? Recommendations for a flux?


----------



## Marcel

Melting tantalum requires vaccum or melting under a noblegas. I think apart from the incredible melting point around 3000°C that is impossible to do for a small refiner. In addition Ta is not so expensive as some may guess, only pure Ta is quite expensive. That may be because it is so hard to produce.


----------



## skippy

Marcel,I didn't say melt the tantalum. Tantalum isn't noble, and some sort of flux would dissolve it. Sodium hydroxide would dissolve it, but it's dangerous and I would want to get the values to melting point so they would coalesce, and sodium hydroxide is volatile at gold meting temperatures. As far as any tantalum, I'm saying flux it off, don't melt it or save it. It's just in the way and possibly locking up gold.


----------



## rusty

What I'm demonstrating here is that Tantalum is scavenged from the waste from the milled IC's introduced to the centrifuge bowel. along with gold and platinum.

A shaker table or some other piece of equipment like a blue bowel or gold spiral wheel would eliminate the tantalum from the gold concentrates. Ta falls into the SG range of what my cons contain, it's the only metal not affected by hot AR.

Because of tantalums is rather heavy it settles out quickly after stirring, rendering your acid bleach leach nearly useless as the leach requires direct contact with the gold in order to digest it.

IMHO: Acid / Bleach is good for processing gold but has difficulty's when platinum is present or in my case a heavy layer of tantalum covering the gold.

After pre - treating the milled material ( IC's ) with various acids cleaned then up of base metals, in addition silver and palladium before being turned into concentrates, I estimate there's only 3 maybe 4 metals tops in my concentrates all of which have value.

A pound of tantalum scrap would buy me a years supply of nitric acid so I'm not about to toss the baby with the bath water.

By the time I'm ready to process another large batch, I will have made that shaker table, to polish up my concentrates getting a better shot at that gold were all after.

Thanks for all the suggestions.


----------



## skippy

Have you recovered any silver yet from your washes? It would be interesting if that reported well.

My suggestions are just the guesses of an long time gold refining forum reader, my experience is still quite limited, but I retain a lot of things I read,
so I make suggestions in hopes of further feedback and in the spirit of stimulation of more discussion - it's kind of brainstorming rather than something I would stake anything on or prod others into following.
Anyways, I think I'm about out of suggestions, so I will just step back a bit and give you some room.


----------



## rusty

skippy said:


> One thing I did when reprocessing some sludges from cat converters was this: I put the sludge in the bottom of a bucket, added ssn, took a plastic garbage bag and taped the opening around the bucket. I then poked a cpvc pipe through the bag and taped the pipe to the bag and used that pipe to stir the contents. Tis keeps the fumes down and slows down fluid evaporation. Meanwhile I was heating the bucket in a water bath in a cut open keg. You can go beyond the temperature rating of the polyethylene bucket because the water bath supports the bucket from deforming and failing. I imagine hot ssn would work pretty well on gold. I couldn't justify buying a fancy apparatus like the one you showed unless I was going to be using it regularly to make money, ssn works better hot, and I suspect the HCl would work better at a a higher temperature than it's getting in early in Manitoba spring :lol:



skippy what did you think of the SSN leach, did you add any additional oxidizer.

Its warmed up a lot over the last couple of days, my acid bleach leach is full of brown powder and still ticking along at a leisurely pace.

My leach now has a SG of 85, now that the leach is becoming more concentrated with metal ions the chlorine gas now stays much longer in the leach. Instead of very vigorous bubbling with new bleach additions I now have very small gas bubbles rising to the top where they form larger bubble caps on reaching the surface.

Then you can observe that the gold powder is staying in suspension longer giving the leach that brown color.

I'm not sure how much metal a gallon of acid bleach can take up in solution, anyone know the answer.


----------



## skippy

I believe a chlorine leach won't bubble except to the extent that base metals are present and reacting with the hcl. 
Aqua regia bubbles due to NO, and metals more active than copper release hydrogen when they are dissolved in acids. Copper and gold and palladium, platinum, silver, mercury are less active and when dissolving in a chlorine bearing solution don't release hydrogen. Corrections welcomed, I am not a chemist!


----------



## skippy

I thought the SSN was pretty good, and I managed to achieve decent rhodium extraction, with it. I know people doubt it, but the salt makes a big difference, I believe. I would have the cat material, the dissolved sodium nitrate and hcl in the bucket material, and when you stirred in the salt the solution visibly became accelerated in its gain of color from dissolved precious metals. It was more than just stirring too, I believe.
SSN will need heat as it doesn't do a lot at room temperature. 

I made it with HCL and sodium nitrate and salt rather than nitric acid and salt. If you balance the amounts with the molecular weights, you should have functionally the same thing. No extra anything was added.

Straight AR is likely better when you have a lot of metals to dissolve, which is what I think you are looking for.


----------



## rusty

I see that chlorine dioxide is also an interesting and potentially dangerous gas.

Thought about bubbling pure oxygen through my leach to decompose the chlorine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_dioxide

Don't think I would recommend doing this at home.


----------



## Platdigger

Honestly. I think your best bet is going to be to smelt these centrifuged cons.


----------



## rusty

Platdigger said:


> Honestly. I think your best bet is going to be to smelt these centrifuged cons.




You have aroused my curiosity as to how you have concluded that the concentrates from the centrifuge should be smelted, smelting is a Metallurgical process used to remove base metals.

Base metals were previously removed using Hydrometallurgy techniques, followed up with mechanically assisted gravitational forces to get concentrates of the precious metals group. 

Just so happens Tantalum an insoluble during the Hydrometallurgy part of my process reports in my mechanically assisted concentrates.

Now that I have learned to recognize tantalums presence will know how to pre-treat my concentrates to remove it before proceeding to going after my gold. 

I believe the shaker table will split tantalum from the cons.

I do not follow your logic to smelt.


----------



## rusty

rusty said:


> skippy said:
> 
> 
> 
> One thing I did when reprocessing some sludges from cat converters was this: I put the sludge in the bottom of a bucket, added ssn, took a plastic garbage bag and taped the opening around the bucket. I then poked a cpvc pipe through the bag and taped the pipe to the bag and used that pipe to stir the contents. Tis keeps the fumes down and slows down fluid evaporation. Meanwhile I was heating the bucket in a water bath in a cut open keg. You can go beyond the temperature rating of the polyethylene bucket because the water bath supports the bucket from deforming and failing. I imagine hot ssn would work pretty well on gold. I couldn't justify buying a fancy apparatus like the one you showed unless I was going to be using it regularly to make money, ssn works better hot, and I suspect the HCl would work better at a a higher temperature than it's getting in early in Manitoba spring :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> skippy what did you think of the SSN leach, did you add any additional oxidizer.
> 
> Its warmed up a lot over the last couple of days, my acid bleach leach is full of brown powder and still ticking along at a leisurely pace.
> 
> My leach now has a SG of 85, now that the leach is becoming more concentrated with metal ions the chlorine gas now stays much longer in the leach. Instead of very vigorous bubbling with new bleach additions I now have very small gas bubbles rising to the top where they form larger bubble caps on reaching the surface.
> 
> Then you can observe that the gold powder is staying in suspension longer giving the leach that brown color.
> 
> I'm not sure how much metal a gallon of acid bleach can take up in solution, anyone know the answer.
Click to expand...


Now that my leach has become more saturated bringing up the specific gravity of the liquid you can see tantalum floating in the froth.

i would like to give thanks and my gratitude to those that have offered their assistance in identifying the brown powder, after doing some research I'm convinced it is tantalum. I'll not be looking to test further.

Those of you on the forum that purchase tantalum and have familiarity with Ta should be able to confirm this. It's color and physical characteristics are unique which sets it apart from many of the other elements we work with.


----------



## Platdigger

I am sure you have some ta in your cons. I really doubt that is all there is besides precious metals.
If so, if all you have at this point is ta and pms, then me hat is off to you sir. And well done.

Also, I made the comment before you began talking about tabling these cons.
That shaker table should clean them up real good.


----------



## rusty

When the tantalum mud is wet bottom picture resembles chocolate powder, now that it dry has taken on its traditional color - blue gray.

Top picture is at 200 mesh.

Tantalum is also used in resistors as well surface mount capacitors.

I estimate that I'll have 3 or 4 pounds of tantalum to recover from my cons.

Where are our tantalum buyers on the forum, if anyone is interested in purchasing shoot me a PM.


----------



## Marcel

Sorry, I missed that step somehow.
Did you mill tantalum capacitors here?
Tantalum is usually coated with an oxydationlayer immediatly. I have Ta powder and sponge here. It is all black because of that TaO. Pure Ta is very rare and very expensive compared to the (usual) mix of Ta and TaO that you find in the capacitor. Ta is not a noblemetal, it oxidizes with minimal energy. So I would not susspect too much pure Ta in such a mix. TaO is also very very hard, tools are made of it. I doubt that it can be milled by steel.
Dont want to be counterproductive, but I guess it will be very difficult to extract the Ta from such a mix mit our household means. I would rather try to isolate it as much as possible and then sell the mud to a pro.
Will be interesting to see how your story will go on... Good luck.


----------



## rusty

Marcel said:


> Sorry, I missed that step somehow.
> Did you mill tantalum capacitors here?
> Tantalum is usually coated with an oxydationlayer immediatly. I have Ta powder and sponge here. It is all black because of that TaO. Pure Ta is very rare and very expensive compared to the (usual) mix of Ta and TaO that you find in the capacitor. Ta is not a noblemetal, it oxidizes with minimal energy. So I would not susspect too much pure Ta in such a mix. TaO is also very very hard, tools are made of it. I doubt that it can be milled by steel.
> Dont want to be counterproductive, but I guess it will be very difficult to extract the Ta from such a mix mit our household means. I would rather try to isolate it as much as possible and then sell the mud to a pro.
> Will be interesting to see how your story will go on... Good luck.



I milled everything except the kitchen sink, anything a magnet would grab was removed.

I'm going to hunt up my twin carbon arc torch then melt some of this powder. This project will have to wait until the weekend as I do not have any carbon rods on hand, I'll phone Russ in the morning and get him to bring me a few carbon rods.

That carbon arc torch has no trouble reaching the required melting point of tantalum.

http://www.teledyneleemanlabs.com/r...lysis_of_Trace_Elements_in_Tantalum_Oxide.pdf

Tantalum is a blue gray metal with a melting point of 3017ºC, the fifth highest behind tungsten,
rhenium, osmium and carbon. Tantalum is found in the Earth’s crust at concentrations between 1
and 2 μg g-1 by weight and naturally occurs in minerals such as betafite, columbite, simpsonite and
tantalite. As a pure metal, tantalum is used to produce capacitors and resistors that are found in
computers, DVD players, automotive electronics and portable telephones.


----------



## rusty

I'm not expecting any great wonder in my attempt to melt a small sample of tantalum powder, from what I've read it's melted under vacuum with an inert gas cover.

The best I have for a gas cover is CO2 i think argon is preferred, or perhaps I could use a crude flux cover.

The carbon arc torch below is a bit of interesting history, can reach temperatures beyond 3000ºC. and will sunburn exposed body parts in seconds. You need a decent shade of glass in your helmet or suffer flash.


----------



## rusty

I'm coming up with some very interesting information on tantalum, actually I'm very curious as to how I ended up with so much of it.

http://www.commerceresources.com/s/AboutTantalum.asp

Uses for Tantalum

About half of the tantalum consumed each year is used in the electronics industry, mainly as powder and wire for capacitors, owing to tantalum's particular ability to store and release electrical energy. This allows components to be exceptionally small and they are therefore favored in space-sensitive high-end applications in telecommunications, data storage and implantable medical devices. Tantalum is also used for electronic sound filters and as a barrier against copper diffusion in semi-conductors. Tantalum carbide's hardness makes it ideal for cutting tools.


----------



## Marcel

@rusty:
The capacitors dielectric is made from pure tantalum, but this Ta is then converted into a mix of more or less Ta + Ta2O5

Dielectric
The dielectric is then formed over all the tantalum particle surfaces by the electrochemical process of anodization. To achieve this, the “pellet” is submerged into a very weak solution of acid and DC voltage is applied. The total dielectric thickness is determined by the final voltage applied during the forming process. Initially the power supply is kept in a constant current mode until the correct voltage (i.e. dielectric thickness) has been reached; it then holds this voltage and the current decays to close to zero to provide a uniform thickness throughout the device and production lot. The chemical equations describing the dielectric formation process at the anode are as follows:

2 Ta → 2 Ta5+ + 10 e−
2 Ta5+ + 10 OH− → Ta2O5 + 5 H2O

The oxide forms on the surface of the tantalum but it also grows into the material. For each unit of oxide, one third grows out and two thirds grows in. It is for this reason that there is a limit on the maximum voltage rating of tantalum oxide for each of the presently available tantalum powders.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor

The black color that I have here may be the carbon powder that is also used in the construction. If I clean them, they are still very dark with a very deep blue teint.
I just want to point in that direction, since I would expect to meet mostly Ta2O5 and not pure Ta, which would mean that it is refined and treated in a different way to purify it.

Tantalum pentoxide is a highly robust material, decomposing thermally above 1470 °C.

Chlorination of Ta2O5 with carbon tetrachloride affords tantalum pentachloride:

Ta2O5 + 5 CCl4 → 2 TaCl5 + 5 COCl2

Ta2O5 can be reduced several different ways, including the use of metallic reductants such as calcium and aluminum.

Ta2O5 + 2 Al → Al2O3 + TaO2 + Ta
Ta2O5 + Ca → CaO + 2 TaO2

These reactions can be further modified to yield pure tantalum via stoichiometry, thermal control and electrolysis.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta2O5

So you may only need to reach 1500°C instead of 3000°. That would be much easier.
Hope this helps..


----------



## etack

Gill I doubt what you have is all Tantalum. you would need on the realm of 15# of caps to get that much powder. also as we know with gold the powder is not the same color as the melted bar.

Also most of the Tantalum would have been removed with your magnetic separation. Tantalum is not magnetic but the CuFe or Ni leads are. they are not always easy to separate.

an interesting test for you would be to press it into a pill and run some DC current through it to see if it changes color.

I ran some quick numbers and think it might be possible to account for about 2# but highly unlikely for any more.

Older MB had more Ta caps and most are on the graphic sound cards. on 1.2 tons that would be close to 4-6kilos @ 20% return on SMDs thats in the 1-2# range. not all SMDs have a 20% return that is the average low end. 
There is no way of knowing what you have until you get it tested. 

Eric


----------



## rusty

Marcel said:


> @rusty:
> The capacitors dielectric is made from pure tantalum, but this Ta is then converted into a mix of more or less Ta + Ta2O5
> 
> Dielectric
> The dielectric is then formed over all the tantalum particle surfaces by the electrochemical process of anodization. To achieve this, the “pellet” is submerged into a very weak solution of acid and DC voltage is applied. The total dielectric thickness is determined by the final voltage applied during the forming process. Initially the power supply is kept in a constant current mode until the correct voltage (i.e. dielectric thickness) has been reached; it then holds this voltage and the current decays to close to zero to provide a uniform thickness throughout the device and production lot. The chemical equations describing the dielectric formation process at the anode are as follows:
> 
> 2 Ta → 2 Ta5+ + 10 e−
> 2 Ta5+ + 10 OH− → Ta2O5 + 5 H2O
> 
> The oxide forms on the surface of the tantalum but it also grows into the material. For each unit of oxide, one third grows out and two thirds grows in. It is for this reason that there is a limit on the maximum voltage rating of tantalum oxide for each of the presently available tantalum powders.
> Source:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor
> 
> The black color that I have here may be the carbon powder that is also used in the construction. If I clean them, they are still very dark with a very deep blue teint.
> I just want to point in that direction, since I would expect to meet mostly Ta2O5 and not pure Ta, which would mean that it is refined and treated in a different way to purify it.
> 
> Tantalum pentoxide is a highly robust material, decomposing thermally above 1470 °C.
> 
> Chlorination of Ta2O5 with carbon tetrachloride affords tantalum pentachloride:
> 
> Ta2O5 + 5 CCl4 → 2 TaCl5 + 5 COCl2
> 
> Ta2O5 can be reduced several different ways, including the use of metallic reductants such as calcium and aluminum.
> 
> Ta2O5 + 2 Al → Al2O3 + TaO2 + Ta
> Ta2O5 + Ca → CaO + 2 TaO2
> 
> These reactions can be further modified to yield pure tantalum via stoichiometry, thermal control and electrolysis.
> Source:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta2O5
> 
> So you may only need to reach 1500°C instead of 3000°. That would be much easier.
> Hope this helps..



Marcel thank you for the great info, I doubt that I'll ever try to process the ta, but sell the powder to those who are better equipped to handle it.

My excitement lies in the fact that I've been able to recover it as an added value to the scrap I'm able to process myself.


----------



## etack

Refining and melting Tantalum is just a waste of time. I have quite a bit of it in Ta caps and wouldn't get a good price on it if it was all pure. its sold and dealt with in the tons not the pounds. I am the only person that will buy Ta caps or small amounts of Tantalum at any sort of decent price. If you have over 250# of caps some people will talk to you. If you have 100# of 99% tantalum you can get an ok price but still under half of its price. Most scrap yards won't take it unless they are in a part of the country that deals in this scrap from hi temp application some refractories and jet engines or chemical application.

3-4# of Ta powder or even anodes will and is hard to sell.

Eric


----------



## rusty

etack said:


> Gill I doubt what you have is all Tantalum. you would need on the realm of 15# of caps to get that much powder. also as we know with gold the powder is not the same color as the melted bar.
> 
> Also most of the Tantalum would have been removed with your magnetic separation. Tantalum is not magnetic but the CuFe or Ni leads are. they are not always easy to separate.
> 
> an interesting test for you would be to press it into a pill and run some DC current through it to see if it changes color.
> 
> I ran some quick numbers and think it might be possible to account for about 2# but highly unlikely for any more.
> 
> Older MB had more Ta caps and most are on the graphic sound cards. on 1.2 tons that would be close to 4-6kilos @ 20% return on SMDs thats in the 1-2# range. not all SMDs have a 20% return that is the average low end.
> There is no way of knowing what you have until you get it tested.
> 
> Eric



The majority of the boards were hybrid and I remember them well as the chips on-board had a thick layer of clear epoxy poured over them, some larger IC's with metal backing had the backing soldered to the board. They were a nightmare to shear off the chips.

I had first incinerated the chips before milling, the magnetics removed afterwards, of late I've been milling my chips without incinerating.

Pressing the powder into a pill and running DC current sounds more interesting than trying to melt the powder, this test batch I have on hand was not washed all that well a hint of purple showed on drying so we know there was still some gold chloride present.

I agree there is more than just tantalum present, from the layer left behind after decanting the leach,

Uppermost top layer is reddish brown, then we have the tantalum, then a grainy material under the Tantalum a layer impregnated with white specks, looks like a shovel full of beach sand full of broken sea shells.

Then on the very bottom I still have some precious metals once exposed reacting with the leach, when it had been inactive for days.

The layer under the tantalum is very compacted, I can easily pour off the upper layers leaving the compacted layers untouched. I really have to dig to remove that bottom layer then it comes out in large clumps and sheets.

I have my suspicions that the brown powder is a rare earth with a specific gravity between copper and tantalum, with the following property's, reddish brown in color, used in electronics, non magnetic and non reactive to acids.

Now it would be cool to have a laboratory centrifuge using Pyrex vials where one could visually see the layers of separation.

There are seventeen rare earths, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element

21 Sc Scandium Light aluminium-scandium alloy for aerospace components, additive in Mercury-vapor lamps.[4]

39 Y Yttrium Yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) laser, yttrium vanadate (YVO4) as host for europium in TV red phosphor, YBCO high-temperature superconductors, Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), yttrium iron garnet (YIG) microwave filters,[4] energy-efficient light bulbs[5]

57 La Lanthanum High refractive index glass, flint, hydrogen storage, battery-electrodes, camera lenses, fluid catalytic cracking catalyst for oil refineries

58 Ce Cerium Chemical oxidizing agent, polishing powder, yellow colors in glass and ceramics, catalyst for self-cleaning ovens, fluid catalytic cracking catalyst for oil refineries, ferrocerium flints for lighters

59 Pr Praseodymium Rare-earth magnets, lasers, core material for carbon arc lighting, colorant in glasses and enamels, additive in didymium glass used in welding goggles,[4] ferrocerium firesteel (flint) products.

60 Nd Neodymium Rare-earth magnets, lasers, violet colors in glass and ceramics, ceramic capacitors

61 Pm Promethium Nuclear batteries

62 Sm Samarium Rare-earth magnets, lasers, neutron capture, masers

63 Eu Europium Red and blue phosphors, lasers, mercury-vapor lamps, NMR relaxation agent

64 Gd Gadolinium  Rare-earth magnets, high refractive index glass or garnets, lasers, X-ray tubes, computer memories, neutron capture, MRI contrast agent, NMR relaxation agent

65 Tb Terbium Green phosphors, lasers, fluorescent lamps

66 Dy Dysprosium Rare-earth magnets, lasers

67 Ho Holmium Lasers

68 Er Erbium Lasers, vanadium steel

69 Tm Thulium Portable X-ray machines

70 Yb Ytterbium Infrared lasers, chemical reducing agent

71 Lu Lutetium  Positron emission tomography - PET Scan detectors, high refractive index glass - Leds


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## rusty

To avoid cross contamination I've ordered a few new vacuum filter flasks along with some other odd bits of glassware. Once this arrives we'll all have a chance to see how much gold was recovered from that big lot of concentrates.

A few minutes ago unloaded the ball mill, what I would like to show is how well the gold braze has been abraded from these CPU lids during their time spent in the mill. The lids were still attached to the cpu's before going into the mill, they're history.

The resin from the chips is very abrasive and it does a very good job of wearing away at the gold brazes and plated material.

On a side note, I mailed off a sample of the gray powder to have it read from an XRF, hopefully we'll have some information within the next couple of weeks.


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## rusty

A small sample of todays run through the centrifuge, judging from the flame during incineration process there's not very much copper in my cons.

After incineration I mortared the lumps, if you enlarge the picture you will see bright specs of which reflected the camera flash, I suspect this to be silver which beaded up during incineration.

The chips processed were from random lots recently purchased off ebay.


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## rusty

I've altered my process, eliminating a few steps.

1. Raw un incinerated chips straight to the ball mill, screened out pins sending the remaining mud to the centrifuge.

2. Incinerated small centrifuge sample - pictures above.

3. Concentrates from centrifuge straight to 50/50 nitric, the filtered liquor has a hint of green - no copper. Addition of HCL produced silver chloride.

4. The insolubles from the nitric leach will be incinerated, possibly an HCL leach with a few drops of sulfuric acid before proceeding to gold using an acid / bleach leach.

Top picture filter full of brown mud, I suspect the orange floater is possibly a rare earth.


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## g_axelsson

Why do you think you have rare earth in chips? If there are some it is as doping in the silicon die, it would be in such minute amounts and mixed into the silicon.
I think your orange floaters is of a quite more mundane origin, iron hydroxide, or as most people calls it, rust.

Göran


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## rusty

g_axelsson said:


> Why do you think you have rare earth in chips? If there are some it is as doping in the silicon die, it would be in such minute amounts and mixed into the silicon.
> I think your orange floaters is of a quite more mundane origin, iron hydroxide, or as most people calls it, rust.
> 
> Göran



After doing a color comparison I agree with Göran the orange residue is iron hydroxide.

For the time being I've concluded my input to this thread, to satisfy the skeptics will report our findings from the sample of gray powder sent out for analysis. Until then I turn this thread over to you for debate and discussion.

The pros and the cons of the centrifuge.


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## rusty

A sample of the gold chloride from my concentrates.


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## srlaulis

I can't wait to see the final product! :mrgreen:


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## butcher

Is that real sunshine in that picture :lol:


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## rusty

butcher said:


> Is that real sunshine in that picture :lol:




360 days, a rain storm is a 10 minute torrent. Wanna talk about snow.


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## rusty

The results from an XRF reading on the gray powder, percentages only in precious metals mode.

Silver less than 2%
Platinum 1%
CR, Chromium
TA, Tantalum
ZR, Zirconium
SR, Strontium
PB, lead
BR, Bromine 
HG, Mercury
FR, Francium 
AS, Arsenic
ZN, Zinc
RE, Rhenium
FE, Iron
MN, Manganese
NI, Nickel


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## Marcel

Wow nice, finally some hard data!
Looks as if the Pt is worth beeing hunted down. 
I would try to reduce the mass by:
1. Magnetic seperation (iron,nickel)
2. Washing (will dissolve all watersoluable material)
3. Dilute nitric
4. Then AR or else to dissolve the Pt.
Just my thoughts.
Except for mercury and arsenic nothing to worry about to much. Francium is radioactive, but I dont know how strong and how much there is of it.
My 6.5 Kg grey powder from the refinery should have similiar composition.


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## rusty

Marcel said:


> Wow nice, finally some hard data!
> Looks as if the Pt is worth beeing hunted down.
> I would try to reduce the mass by:
> 1. Magnetic seperation (iron,nickel)
> 2. Washing (will dissolve all watersoluable material)
> 3. Dilute nitric
> 4. Then AR or else to dissolve the Pt.
> Just my thoughts.
> Except for mercury and arsenic nothing to worry about to much. Francium is radioactive, but I dont know how strong and how much there is of it.
> My 6.5 Kg grey powder from the refinery should have similiar composition.



Marcel the powder was the dregs after the final AR leach, I'm surprised mercury reared its ugly head as these cons had been subjected to a lengthly incineration, a 50/50 nitric leach then AR.

I had never heard of Francium then after looking it up found that it is radio active, makes me wonder what use it would have in electronics.


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## Sucho

Francium is definitely XRF misinterpretation of spectra. There is almost no possibility to have Fr in your sample because of very short half life of all isotopes ( in a range of minutes). theres no stable isotope of francium.also extrapolated density does not fit for centrifugal concentration


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## rusty

My large lot of cons has been on heat for a week and its still reacting.

Patience is not one of my better attributes, I've decanted several liters of leach. De-noxxed 2000 ml of pregnant leach then precipitated the gold using SMB let the gold settle out overnight.

The gold appears fairly clean on this first run, when I decanted the gold barren leach the gold powder clumps together really good, finally doing something right. 

Final gold wash using Harold's procedure, thank you Harold.

Then I tested the green colored solution with fresh stannous checking on how clean the drop was, looks to be complete. Stannous showing PT dark brown swab orange in lighter concentrations.

I can hardly wait for the reactor to arrive, it has work waiting evaporating the pregnant platinum leach.

It's going to be a busy week.


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## glondor

I still see snow....All of ours was gone last Thursday ! It snowed again last night....grrrr


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## rusty

glondor said:


> I still see snow....All of ours was gone last Thursday ! It snowed again last night....grrrr



We had some of your snow last night, woke up to ground cover.


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## rusty

The green filtrates above and those below came from the same batch of cons.

From the green colored liquor I was only getting a few grams of gold per 2000ml, this stuff below looks like the mother load.

The spent liquor from the green leach is currently cementing out PGM's with copper, the liquid is now very black.


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## rusty

The flask with the canary yellow solution was filtered hot as is from the leach pail, 2nd honey colored had HCL added.

The yellow filtrate was still hot entering the filter on cooling the gold chloride crystallized, the spigot on the filter is plugged solid with more crystals in the filter.

I've added fresh HCL full strength to bring the crystals back into solution, as you can see I still have ice bergs in the flask.

Made a few wooden patterns which will be used to make an open plaster mold to pour my gold, once the plaster has cured remove the wood patterns.

The vacuum pump will be used to evacuate any bubbles in the plaster giving the mold cavity a nice smooth finish.

Thinking of putting this project on hold and give this job to the reactor when it arrives, leaching cons in a plastic pail sucks big time.


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## rusty

The gold barren green colored leach, copper cementing out PGM's.

Coppers from microwave magnetron's. 

Specific gravity has changed the gold chloride crystals have taken up a new position in the flask changing from sinkers to floaters.

In case your wondering why so many pictures, I do not allow my wife admittance to my shop but keep her abreast of what I'm doing via photo's from which are then easy to share with forum members.


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## srlaulis

Are you afraid she will hurt herself, Rusty?


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## rusty

With the addition from the flask on the left the crystals are now completely consumed.


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## rusty

The centrifuge did its job very well, I'm very satisfied with it.

After the gold had surrendered, my leaches are coming off greenish in color.

With the gold now mostly gone, platinum the most noble resists acids and it takes a lot of heat in addition the fresh leach is helping, constant agitation would also help.


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## Captobvious

srlaulis said:


> Are you afraid she will hurt herself, Rusty?



I know I won't let mine in my workshop when I have reactions going, but then again she is pregnant with our 3rd child right now (just found out it's a little girl 8) ) and while I don't know it would be dangerous for her to be out there, it's just not something I want to risk.


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## srlaulis

Congratulations on your good news! I am happy for you. I understand about not "wanting" your wife to expose herself to the dangers; however, I'll be darn if I tell my wife she can't go somewhere on our property! :lol: I just may very well find myself stuffed in a bucket with an air bubbler shoved up my rear end! :lol: She doesn't care to involve herself in any dangerous situations anyway, but if she wanted to, she would be safe and use the proper protective equipment. :mrgreen:


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## Captobvious

srlaulis said:


> Congratulations on your good news! I am happy for you. I understand about not "wanting" your wife to expose herself to the dangers; however, I'll be darn if I tell my wife she can't go somewhere on our property! :lol: I just may very well find myself stuffed in a bucket with an air bubbler shoved up my rear end! :lol: She doesn't care to involve herself in any dangerous situations anyway, but if she wanted to, she would be safe and use the proper protective equipment. :mrgreen:



Thanks! :mrgreen: and by no means is she forbidden or banned from the garage (my workshop) and were she to have desire to come out and help (once she has the baby) I'd be more than happy to welcome her out there and make sure she does things the safe right ways. That said I doubt she would as she's very "smell" sensitive and can usually pick up on the most insignificant of odors/vapors.

The good thing in that tho is I can actually have my man-cave.... ok more cave than anything at this point hehe but I at least have a place I can go to be with my own thoughts when I need to


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## srlaulis

I'm right there with you man! 8)


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## kane333

rusty said:


> Copper with its unique color and SP makes a good indicator.
> 
> I already know that copper skates across the densely compacted precious metals leaving trace amounts on the compacted surface, it is only when the grooves begin to completely fill with copper that I know I have depleted the more dense metals and it is now time to quit processing. It would be foolish to purposely ad more copper to good cons.
> 
> If by chance I have sent traces of precious metals to tailings it's no big deal I can send the tailings to a refinery who will catch those traces, the idea here is to hasten the cash flow.



Correct me if I'm way off base but Copper has an SG of 8.89 and Silver of 10.5. You try to stop the process when you see copper in the bands correct? What if you were to add another element that had an SG between those that was worth more than copper but less than silver. Would this make it easier to avoid copper contamination? 

Bismuth - SG 9.79

Not difficult to acquire. Twice as abundant as gold in the earths crust. Also used to make Pepto-Bismol.

Purified Bismuth is in the neighborhood of $25-Kg.

Just a thought.


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## rusty

I've had heat on my leach for the past week or more, obviously into platinum which resists surrendering to acids.

Three days ago decided to get serious and added salt to my bath water to raise the temperature. My actions resulted in several benefits, hotter water which does not boil over. 

Now only a heavy layer of foam that caps the water preventing violent bubbling and virtually no steam which one would experience from super heated water.

I'm going to get that platinum into solution one way or another.

Salt Facts, SSN with out the nitric.

The boiling point of salt water will rise by about half a degree Celsius for every 30 grams of salt dissolved per kilogram (litre) of water


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## rusty

if you have been following the picture story, each leach pulled from the cons has changed color along the way. In the beginning the more reactive metals surrendered to the AR. 

I'm really glad that i have choose to process this way as I have learned so much from each leach and its associated color with stannous. In addition you can really tell that some of the latter leaches have palladium just with a visual.

Todays filtrate center flask.


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## rusty

The sample sent out went to two different places Ta represented 3.591% of a few gram sample, now that the cons from which this sample came has been through several hot Ar leaches. Anything that would go into solution certainly has.

I would think now the TA content is much more concentrated, have a look at the filter below.

From the bottom of the pail used to leach the cons, I recovered a small bit of a pink material, the SG is greater than the top layer of mud and this sits on the very bottom in a small quantity. Actually what you see in the quartz dish is all there was.

When this is wet the color shows up more pink, I've heated this up, the black that is mixed in with it I can get it glowing red hot while the pink stuff does not, nor does it give off any oxides.

I really don't care what it is, just sharing an oddity.


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## rusty

Incredible after spending literally weeks in hot AR, my camera flash tells me there is still a precious metal left in what should be a discard.

What your looking at is the bottom side of the mud ( vacuum filtered the last of the gold chloride free ) the filter cake after tipping it free from the filter then the paper peeled away.

Check out the colloidal gold left behind on the filter cake, then the edges to the dish, then have a look at the filter papers top right hand side. All that purple colloidal gold visible from the camera flash - $$$$

My rinse water was after several rinses coming out clear, the filter papers top right hand corner snow white and yet a loss in gold clearly shown. The camera flash picks up what the naked human eye can not. I love forensic science.


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## rusty

If I were a glass blower there's enough colloidal gold here to make a lifetime supply of Cranberry Glass, the spatter on the hotplate came from a half full vision ware pot evaporating a bit of chloride down.

The temperature was kept low the spatter came from off gassing which carried the gold over the top of the pot, off gassing will occur anytime your AR has free nitric.

Next is a sheet of fireproof board that my frying pan sat on full of filters which I had incinerated, I had a cover over the pan so the ash would stay put during the burn and the amount of gold left on the sheet is absurd not to mention what went to atmosphere.

I'm sure there is probably less than a few milligrams of gold spattered about but over time this adds up to a considerable loss which I would rather not see. Especially with gold that put so much work and effort into obtaining.

Any ideas how to keep that gold where it belongs would be appreciated. A watch glass over the pot would have kept the AR from spattering, how about the filters during incineration.


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## rusty

The forums second most asked question, How much gold do you think.

Evaporation has begun, 10,000 ml gold chloride in reactor with another 5 liters waiting to be added. Hopefully my chloride solution will not crystallize before coming to an end leaving me enough head room for the addition of distilled water.

I have taken the time to let the chloride settle out over days, then filtering into a super clean flask, washing the flask every time the chloride has been removed or transfered. Absolutely no sediments have made it to this point of my process, 

I'm shooting for a nice clean gold drop, then taking extra precautions cleaning the precipitated gold powder.

Sadly I'm not able to use my vacuum pump to assist with evaporation. The CFM of this pump will not handle the volume of vapor coming off.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnTEOSCLw64[/youtube]


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## GOLDbuyerCA

*Noticing that* 7400 ttl chips may have gold leads, / i am surprised, i thought they were aluminum, a quick thought as i am following this thread on ideas for processing ic's, 
have a look at this, it seems gold bonding wires, i am very surprised. they are the general temp. version , lower cost chip, over the 5400 series, . see here 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT1FStxAVz4&feature=player_embedded


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## Traveller11

Hello Rusty

I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?


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## rusty

Traveller11 said:


> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?



What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.


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## Traveller11

rusty said:


> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.
Click to expand...


I don't have the time to read this thread over again. I'll assume the answer is "no".


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## rusty

Traveller11 said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't have the time to read this thread over again. I'll assume the answer is "no".
Click to expand...


Your right, my bowel is solid not water injected, the commercially manufactured rotary seal used by Knelson and Falcon cost over $2500.00 USD, I did however come up with my own design but not ventured to make a prototype to test my theory.

Should my design prove itself perhaps a patient would be in order,so at this time will not be sharing in details.

If your interested in building your own centrifuge, John Crane is the worlds leading manufacture of mechanical seals. http://www.johncrane.com/productfinder.asp?r=gg


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## Traveller11

rusty said:


> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't have the time to read this thread over again. I'll assume the answer is "no".
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Your right, my bowel is solid not water injected, the commercially manufactured rotary seal used by Knelson and Falcon cost over $2500.00 USD, I did however come up with my own design but not ventured to make a prototype to test my theory.
> 
> Should my design prove itself perhaps a patient would be in order,so at this time will not be sharing in details.
> 
> If your interested in building your own centrifuge, John Crane is the worlds leading manufacture of mechanical seals. http://www.johncrane.com/productfinder.asp?r=gg
Click to expand...


I've tried to build a copy of a Falcon I-con and it was always the rotary seal that was the stumbling block. Without the water injection, the impaction becomes a serious drawback. Interestingly, I was quoted a price for the I-con last year of $6808, F.O.B. Vancouver, BC.


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## rusty

Traveller11 said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't have the time to read this thread over again. I'll assume the answer is "no".
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Your right, my bowel is solid not water injected, the commercially manufactured rotary seal used by Knelson and Falcon cost over $2500.00 USD, I did however come up with my own design but not ventured to make a prototype to test my theory.
> 
> Should my design prove itself perhaps a patient would be in order,so at this time will not be sharing in details.
> 
> If your interested in building your own centrifuge, John Crane is the worlds leading manufacture of mechanical seals. http://www.johncrane.com/productfinder.asp?r=gg
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I've tried to build a copy of a Falcon I-con and it was always the rotary seal that was the stumbling block. Without the water injection, the impaction becomes a serious drawback. Interestingly, I was quoted a price for the I-con last year of $6808, F.O.B. Vancouver, BC.
Click to expand...


The seal quote I had was from Savona Equipment http://www.savonaequip.com/ if I had the part number could have input this into the John Crane website.

If you can get a turn key Falcon I-con for $6808.00 grab it. That lab model shown in this thread lists at $13000.00 and change.


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## Traveller11

rusty said:


> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rusty said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Traveller11 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Rusty
> 
> I was unable to tell from reading the thread, did your centrifuge's bowl use pressurized water injection in the grooves, in the fashion of Knelson and Falcon centrifuges?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What i was unable to explain in plain English the pictures should have covered, go back a re-read from the part where I turned the bowel from a poly solid.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't have the time to read this thread over again. I'll assume the answer is "no".
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Your right, my bowel is solid not water injected, the commercially manufactured rotary seal used by Knelson and Falcon cost over $2500.00 USD, I did however come up with my own design but not ventured to make a prototype to test my theory.
> 
> Should my design prove itself perhaps a patient would be in order,so at this time will not be sharing in details.
> 
> If your interested in building your own centrifuge, John Crane is the worlds leading manufacture of mechanical seals. http://www.johncrane.com/productfinder.asp?r=gg
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I've tried to build a copy of a Falcon I-con and it was always the rotary seal that was the stumbling block. Without the water injection, the impaction becomes a serious drawback. Interestingly, I was quoted a price for the I-con last year of $6808, F.O.B. Vancouver, BC.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The seal quote I had was from Savona Equipment http://www.savonaequip.com/ if I had the part number could have input this into the John Crane website.
> 
> If you can get a turn key Falcon I-con for $6808.00 grab it. That lab model shown in this thread lists at $13000.00 and change.
Click to expand...



http://www.mining.com/falcon-concentrators-is-changing-the-face-of-small-scale-artisanal-gold-mining-around-the-world/

This article is four years old and lists the price as under $6000 CDN. I was quoted $6808 from the manufacturer over the phone in 2012.


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## kjavanb123

No more follow up result on this post, so any results?

Regards
Kj


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## jimdoc

kjavanb123 said:


> No more follow up result on this post, so any results?
> 
> Regards
> Kj




Rusty (this Rusty) is no longer a forum member.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=14120

Jim


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