# I also went wrong somewhere! Please help!



## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

Started with about 5lbs of cell phone boards, I stripped most componants off, still had some. I did AP for 72 hours then brushed and rinsed all boards. Alot of gold flakes in solution. Filtered and rinsed. There was alot of componants, gray mud and gold flakes in filter. Then did HCL/CL all gold seemed to be disolved into a thick green solution not yellow, Filtered green solution let stand 24 hours, Thick silver/gray mud in filter with rest of componants. Dropped stump out(SMB)in solution, It made a dark gray/black mud at the bottom of the solution 24 hours later filtered. A small amount of gray/silver mud in filter. Solution still green. Where did I go wrong? Where is the gold?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 6, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> Started with about 5lbs of cell phone boards, I stripped most componants off, still had some. I did AP for 72 hours then brushed and rinsed all boards. Alot of gold flakes in solution. Filtered and rinsed. There was alot of componants, gray mud and gold flakes in filter. Then did HCL/CL all gold seemed to be disolved into a thick green solution not yellow, Filtered green solution let stand 24 hours, Thick silver/gray mud in filter with rest of componants. Dropped stump out(SMB)in solution, It made a dark gray/black mud at the bottom of the solution 24 hours later filtered. A small amount of gray/silver mud in filter. Solution still green. Where did I go wrong? Where is the gold?



Sounds like your gold dropped. Did you test with stanious? The gray mud you talk a bout could be silver cloride. If you test for PGM's and get no reaction the green solution is the contamination that was still in with your gold flakes that the HCL/CL disoved that your original process didn't get out. Boil the solution for few minutes to make sure you have gotten rid of all the clorine in the solution and test again.


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

solution still does have a choking amount of clorine, not sure how to test with stanious


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 6, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> solution still does have a choking amount of clorine, not sure how to test with stanious



The clorine could redisolve the gold when you try to drop it out of solution. You need to boil this and get the clorine out to get positive results. I will find a link to the test and post it.


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

Thank you so much :lol: I will boil and repost.


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## glorycloud (Jan 6, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> Started with about 5lbs of cell phone boards, I stripped most componants off, still had some. I did AP for 72 hours then brushed and rinsed all boards. Alot of gold flakes in solution. Filtered and rinsed. There was alot of componants, gray mud and gold flakes in filter. Then did HCL/CL all gold seemed to be disolved into a thick green solution not yellow, Filtered green solution let stand 24 hours, Thick silver/gray mud in filter with rest of componants. Dropped stump out(SMB)in solution, It made a dark gray/black mud at the bottom of the solution 24 hours later filtered. A small amount of gray/silver mud in filter. Solution still green. Where did I go wrong? Where is the gold?



You really need to spend some time on lazersteve's website and watch some videos on what is involved in refining escrap whether it be from cell phones or computers. You should always do your best to get all the components and gray mud out before you press on to the HCL/CL dissolving process. All that will end up doing is give you a "dirtier" solution than you really want. Dirtier meaning you have other base metals being dissolved along with your gold. That will just cause more problems for you IF you are trying to get high quality gold as your end product.

If you don't care about the quality of your "refined" gold, just forget you
read this post amigo and keep on keeping on. 8)


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

Thanks Glorycloud what do you think the quality of gold will be being that I processed 5 lbs cell boards with mud?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 6, 2010)

chrishawn, see if this thread will help you any. It was one of my batches that I got a lot of help on from some great people here.

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=6026


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## lazersteve (Jan 6, 2010)

Chris,

The gray mud is copper I chloride. It dissolves easily in HCl. Always make sure it is all removed before you dissolve the residue in HCl-Cl.

If you don't remove it you will keep getting it back when you add more water to the solution.

SMB will also promote the formation of Copper I chloride if it is not removed before dissolving the gold.

Steve


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## AKDan (Jan 6, 2010)

Did I read correctly when the poster said he used Stump-out in place of SMB? I think possibly that there has been a mistake in chemicals used in the process, and that no gold was precipitated. Isn't stump-out generally potassium nitrate or related ?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 6, 2010)

AKDan said:


> Did I read correctly when the poster said he used Stump-out in place of SMB? I think possibly that there has been a mistake in chemicals used in the process, and that no gold was precipitated. Isn't stump-out generally potassium nitrate or related ?



That is the way I read the post.


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

Thanks to all. Am i wrong by using stump out for smb?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 6, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> Thanks to all. Am i wrong by using stump out for smb?






> james122964
> Post subject: Re: separating pins from cpu's without nitric
> 
> what part of the world are you in? do you have auto parts stores? car batteries? If you do then you can buy battery acid which is sulfuric acid diluted to about 30 percent or so.
> ...



This thread might answer your question.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=5917&p=51149&hilit=stump+out#p51149

Search on stump out
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=stump+out&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

the active ingredient in BONIDE stump out stump remover is SMB, I looked it up on the BONIDE site. THANKS TO ALL!


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## chrishawn (Jan 6, 2010)

should i reprecipetate with smb or will the smb i already have put into it drop my gold?


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## AKDan (Jan 6, 2010)

I just looked it up too, and you are correct. So I have learned two things today.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 7, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> should i reprecipetate with smb or will the smb i already have put into it drop my gold?



You will loose you SMB during the boiling because it is the bubbles from the SMB that cause the reaction to drop the gold. So you will need to use more SMB.

Steve or someone could you move this to the original thread so it is not spead out.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 7, 2010)

Thats where it pays to read the ingrediants.


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## Harold_V (Jan 7, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> solution still does have a choking amount of clorine, not sure how to test with stanious


Unbelievable!

Do you drive without using your eyes, too?

I will never understand why ANYONE would dissolve gold and not have a method for detecting where it is. 

Let me give you a bit of advice. 

Stop doing everything you've been doing and read Hoke. Don't attempt to refine until you understand what she tells you. That way you won't have to go before a huge number of people and ask questions for which you should already have the answer. 

No, I'm not trying to be rude. I simply can't understand why folks jump in unknown water, then wonder why things don't work for them, when there's a ton of information at their disposal that will keep them out of trouble. 

Harold


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## chrishawn (Jan 7, 2010)

Thanks all, i wasint sure,but thanks for puting my post in its right place. by the way as far as stannous chloride i shaved 95%tin/5%somethingelse,heated with hcl,then just like Steves vid. took just foils [3or4] added hcl/cl to desolve, very nice yellow color heated to rid chlorine, put a drop of each on napkin and no purple does anyone know what happened


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 7, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> Thanks all, i wasint sure,but thanks for puting my post in its right place. by the way as far as stannous chloride i shaved 95%tin/5%somethingelse,heated with hcl,then just like Steves vid. took just foils [3or4] added hcl/cl to desolve, very nice yellow color heated to rid chlorine, put a drop of each on napkin and no purple does anyone know what happened




How much HCL/CL did you dislove it in to do the test? I had the same problem tying to make testing solution so I bought a bottle of it on Ebay. It might be that your HCL/CL does not have enought gold disolved in it to react and show color.


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## chrishawn (Jan 7, 2010)

Thanks,i dont know what happened but i will try to get some online all im finding is in powder form do i desolve with hcl or something else?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 7, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> Thanks,i dont know what happened but i will try to get some online all im finding is in powder form do i desolve with hcl or something else?



To make the testing solution you disolve in HCL. Go to Lasersteves web site and you can order the power to make your testing solution. 

If you are making an HCL/CL solution with your gold to have something to test to make sure your testing solution is good, use a test tube with 5-10 ml of HCL heat to around 104C and put enough gold in to make sure you are going to have a positive test solution, a gram maybe. Add just enough CL to the solution to disolve the gold. Warm the solution for a little bit to make sue to remove the balance of the CL.

Once you have this down you can take your HCL/CL solution for refrences and put a drop on a plate and mix drops of distilled water with it to see what reactions you get with your testing solution. This will help you recognize what the different concentration or gold laden HCL/CL might look like.


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## chrishawn (Jan 7, 2010)

im not finding any powders on steves price list can you help


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 7, 2010)

chrishawn said:


> im not finding any powders on steves price list can you help



That was zinc he had. Sorry about that.

I tried to find Stannous Cloride on Ebay for you but got no hits on it. There are gold test kits for jewlers but that is not what you want.

Try and make your stannous cloride again with the 95/5 solder you have. Cut the solder into 1/4" pieces and heat the HCL you put it in to make your solution. I would say don't be stingy with the amount of 95/5 you put in the HCL so you can get a good disolvement of tin.

I don't have the link on my puter to the site I bought mine at because I had to redo my computer because of a bad virus I got months back. I hate to leave you hanging like this but that is the best I can do right now. Someone else might have a link to some.

When you make you gold test solution up make sure it has a desent amount of gold in the HCL/CL so you can play with the results you get.


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## chrishawn (Jan 8, 2010)

thank Barren i just did the 1/4 " and heated it to right at boiling and lo & behold it showed a light purple almost pink color.i cannot thank you enough, you have tought me to fish now i can feed my refining sickness lol.I have a million ?s but one step at a time is ok for now. THANKS AGAIN your urbin refining friend!


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 8, 2010)

No problem glad it worked out.


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## lazersteve (Jan 9, 2010)

I sell tin powder on the price list, item number 22 I believe.

The zinc is not powdered, it's turnings.

Steve


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## chemist (Jan 9, 2010)

I bought some of LazerSteve's tin powder and it worked GREAT. I just added a couple of grams of his tin powder to HCl and let it sit at room temperature for a day or so. I used a 50 ml HDPE (plastic) bottle.
Don't seal the container too tightly, though. The reaction of HCl and Sn forms a small amount of hydrogen gas and you have to let the Hydrogen out of the container or it might burst.


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## chrishawn (Jan 11, 2010)

I have made the test solution. thanks all I just noticed a good amount of chrystals in the bottom of my hcl/cl this is ofcourse after i i used smb to drop the gold out of hi clorine solution. I evaporated clorine and salt or chrystals are at bottom. Am i right by thinking it is salt or sodium?


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## lazersteve (Jan 11, 2010)

It's salt add a small amount of water to redissolve the salt.

Steve


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## butcher (Jan 11, 2010)

salt crystals, but could also contain some metals in the crystaline structure, decant them add enough hot water to dissolve. let settle see what you have, the salts are probably sodium chloride, sodium chlorate,sodium hypochlorite heated or in sunlight is unstable and breaks down to these, and gives off chlorine gas and oxygen,
it is my belief that when crystals form in an enviroment of many substances in a solution (like metals) these crystals grow impure, and also collect those metals, and washing a crystal (example impure silver chloride) will not entirely release these metals,they are locked up in the crystal, but dissolving would be necessary,seperation, recrystalization used in chemistry for purer product.


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## chrishawn (Jan 11, 2010)

Thanks Steve, should i try to add more smb sence i evaporated clorine to try an drop more gold?


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