# how to seperate gold from borax????



## Cursed (Nov 13, 2008)

Ok so i think i goofed up and put my gold in the crucable before the borax was baked or maybe i got both to hot and the sort of blended lol humm any one help me out here maybe ?


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## butcher (Nov 13, 2008)

I suggest doing them separate, till you get more acquainted with processes.
pins have much more copper and are harder to remove all the copper, for cpus one method I use is put them in jar cover with HCl add peroxide (I also use fish tank bubbler)adding peroxide or air as needed, this is acid peroxide method (AP), once all copper and solder dissolved and fall of cpu, I rinse and crush them then dissolve the gold with the acid bleach method, using SMB, to precipitate gold from the solutions.
pins I would use nitric acid (can make poormans), to dissolve the copper, rinse foils, incinerate not melting to rid any residue of nitric , and then process remaining gold in HCl bleach
Aqua regia is a sledge hammer will dissolve most all metals fairly easy, it is also more difficult than the above processes and I believe more dangerous for beginners,
edit somehow I must have poste this in wrong section?


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## Harold_V (Nov 13, 2008)

Cursed said:


> Ok so i think i goofed up and put my gold in the crucable before the borax was baked or maybe i got both to hot and the sort of blended lol humm any one help me out here maybe ?


Can you better describe what you've done? Are you discussing gold powder that has been precipitated from solution? Your question is too vague to have any meaning. 

Don't discard anything-----it's not hard to recover from things like this as long as you have everything you started with. 

It's important to hear all the details. If you choose to leave out bits of information, you may steer readers in the wrong direction, so you'll get feedback that is worthless. Even the color of the borax, now, is important. A picture could prove to be valuable as well, if you're able. 

Harold


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## Cursed (Nov 15, 2008)

Yes i recoveredsome gold dust and flakes from a 5 gallon bucket i had using muratic acid. I then got a ceramic crucible or laddel for smelting metal llike a jewler would use what casting. I then was told to put borax in to the laddle after it got hot to prevent the gold from sticking to the laddel. Only problem is that either I got the whole thing to hot OR i di not allow the borax enough time to cool (I suspect it was the first thing I mentioned). which has left me with the crusible having a nice looking glazing of gold and borax in the cruceable. Is here any way i can get the two seperatedfrom one asnother? (borax and gold)


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## Harold_V (Nov 15, 2008)

It's not smart to melt the recovered gold. Regardless of how hard you work, it won't be pure enough to be considered as having been refined. The process you used should be considered a recovery process, not a refining process. You should have dissolved the recovered gold, then filtered and precipitated to purify (refine). 

It's a bit late for that now, but you'll be able to refine the recovered values with just a little more effort. 

You didn't mention how you heated, but part of the problem can be that you simply didn't allow enough time for the metal to agglomerate. I'm not suggesting that heating alone will be the solution, but there's a couple things you can do that will be. 

Having a definite excess of borax is a good place to start, especially if the heated borax is dark in color, which I expect to be the case. If it is not, and is fairly transparent, you may have all you need. As it darkens, it also become more and more viscous, eventually becoming so thick that even fairly heavy beads can't settle. 

If you have a furnace, start with a vessel that is larger than the one you are now using, or simply heat the same one in the furnace, until the contents are liquid (they have melted). Add some soda ash, but do it sparingly, for it will froth up and overflow the crucible. Add soda ash a few times, and observe the color of the flux, which should change color, getting lighter each time you add more soda ash. Allow the material to soak long enough to insure it is up to temperature. Frothing stops when that is the case, with the flux being quite tranquil. Stir with a carbon rod (hold it in a pliers, otherwise you'll burn your hand) to insure that you have mixed the soda ash with the borax. 

If, after a prolonged soak after having added soda ash, you still see prills in the flux, you must add some fluorspar. It is very aggressive, and will be hard on the crucible, more so than the soda ash. A small addition will thin the flux to a water consistency, allowing the prills to agglomerate. With this system you should be able to recover nearly 100% of the values. 

If, by chance, you find that you still have prills in the flux, which, by now, should be quite light in color, you may have to re-melt all of the material, along with a collector. You can use cement silver, or silver chloride to collect the values, but you must repeat the heating and allow the material to soak for a while to insure it has had time to agglomerate. 

You would be very well served to pour the entire lot to a cone mold. Such a mold provides for an easy separation of the values from the flux. The values will occupy the point of the mold, while the flux will occupy the space above. If your process has been properly executed, your flux will show no signs of prills. A prolonged heating of the material insures you gather all of the values. 

Do not discard anything until you are satisfied that you have recovered the values. Dirty flux that is contaminated with prills can be re-melted with fresh flux for further processing and eventual recovery of values. 

Do you have Hoke's book? If not, get it. If you do, have you read it? If you have, do you understand what it is teaching? 

Harold


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## qst42know (Nov 15, 2008)

Cursed said:


> Yes i recoveredsome gold dust and flakes from a 5 gallon bucket i had using muratic acid. I then got a ceramic crucible or laddel for smelting metal llike a jewler would use what casting. I then was told to put borax in to the laddle after it got hot to prevent the gold from sticking to the laddel. Only problem is that either I got the whole thing to hot OR i di not allow the borax enough time to cool (I suspect it was the first thing I mentioned). which has left me with the crusible having a nice looking glazing of gold and borax in the cruceable. Is here any way i can get the two seperatedfrom one asnother? (borax and gold)



What type of torch are you working with? Too small of a heat source and too heavy of melt dish would allow your gold to be scattered in the borax.


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## Platdigger (Nov 15, 2008)

For one way to start over......couldn't he just crush it all up and disolve the borax in hot water?
Assuming he can chip it out of the crucible, that is.
Randy


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## qst42know (Nov 15, 2008)

Chipping borax from a crucible would be difficult and would likely damage it. Kinda need to know exactly how bad things are. Do you have a photo?


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## Harold_V (Nov 15, 2008)

Platdigger said:


> For one way to start over......couldn't he just crush it all up and disolve the borax in hot water?


It would be far more effective to simply place all of the material in a larger crucible and allow the furnace to do the work. 

I'm speaking from the position of considerable experience in this matter. I re-ran a considerable amount of my slag once I understood better procedures. By doing so, you can expect a better recovery. The tilting furnace, below, returned more than 200 ounces of gold when my waste material was processed. 



> Assuming he can chip it out of the crucible, that is



No need to do that. Simply heat with a little soda ash until the entire lot is fluid enough to pour to a cone mold. The resulting button and flux can then be combined in a larger charge, where the lot can have some added fluorspar to make the flux more fluid, insuring a complete recovery. It makes little sense to screw around with this stuff when there are other means that will allow you to achieve a better end. 

On the other hand, if a guy doesn't mind pounding on the flux to reduce it to powder, then panning, or dissolving the lot in dilute sulfuric, that, too, can work. I would not choose that route unless I had no furnace. 

Harold


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## qst42know (Nov 15, 2008)

I suspect if he had a cool furnace like that he wouldn't have had any trouble melting gold.


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## butcher (Nov 16, 2008)

Harold would it help if he added gold? also I am wondering if he didn't have a small amount of gold and copper Etcetera powder, and alot of borax, without enough heat.


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## Cursed (Nov 18, 2008)

vocabulary it has been 29 years since i took college chemistry and i dont remember squat. I think that we used somethingg called a periodic table but I'm not certain. Its a bit foggy back there. They say the first thing to go is the mind and i'd say they are right!

And yes i can come up with a photo as i do have a pretty good digital camera at my disposal.

So what i did was after rinsing my product produced by the Pcb's and soaking them in muratic acid for about 45 days or there abouts was I heated it up in the crucible with my cuttting torch not at full flame of course but pretty darn hot no doubt. I didn't turn the crucible orange but everything inside of it wa scertainly and i was unable to discern what was the borax glazing and what was my product. It all appeared to be the same. I suspect it is because the amount of gold was minimal. None the less i know there is gold present but i do think i was expecting it to produce a puddle bigger than what i got. I dont think i got a puddle at all to be honest it is probably more likely something along the lines of a thick glazing. In any case i am not certain how to post a pic but i am going to give it a shot.


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## Platdigger (Nov 18, 2008)

How big is this crucible?

Looks like there may be some small gold beads outside of the red.
Randy


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## qst42know (Nov 18, 2008)

All those colors indicate your gold was not clean at all from the prolonged soak in HCL. Skipping the dissolving step included much of the metals the gold was plated onto. Harold's advice of a highly fluid flux of soda ash and fluorspar and some careful torch work you should be able wash all the residues to the center and then pour it out. Use your torch to push the residues out of the dish. You should be able to save your gold and the melt dish.


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## Cursed (Nov 18, 2008)

what i had here before i slapped the heat to it? There is a lot of the green PCB material as i let the boards soak a bit to long i think. Or should i add it to the mess I have already made and increase the the volume of what I have now thinking it will make it easier to recover if there is a greater volume...... humm Thanks.

Oh and i found a 1940 edition of Hokes book through my public library I just have to wait for it to come down from the university of Nevada. I'd buy one but i was just informed yesterday that i will be eout of a job the end of next week hope gold prices take a big spike!!!

and this is probably a stupid question but im on a roll and you all have been endlessly helpfull Where do i obtain potash?and isn't there a nother name for it?


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## Harold_V (Nov 18, 2008)

butcher said:


> Harold would it help if he added gold? also I am wondering if he didn't have a small amount of gold and copper Etcetera powder, and alot of borax, without enough heat.


There's little doubt, the problem was a serious amount of contamination along with precious little gold. Otherwise the flux wouldn't be so discolored. 

Yes, adding gold would help, anything that functioned as a collector would, but I think I'd recommend silver instead of gold. I'd get the dish hot, add more borax, some soda ash, then include a small amount of silver. The fluorspar could be eliminated, but it's nice to know for the time when your flux is very viscous. 

By rolling the silver around the dish, you'd capture the gold with little trouble. That would permit fast and easy parting of the gold to eliminate base metals. If (pure, not alloyed) gold was to be used, it's possible the base metal process could be eliminated by dissolving the relatively high purity gold directly in AR. Both systems work, the first one has the potential to yield a higher quality of gold----at the expense of more work, however. 

The recovered metal will need refining, regardless of the method used to recover the values. Extracted gold rarely has adequate quality to avoid a refining process----depending on the objective of the individual at hand. Some guys may enjoy recovering and are happy to melt and sell. Others, with an objective of producing the best possible quality, understand that even one refining is generally not sufficient. 

There's no right or wrong, but if an individual desires to become recognized as a competent refiner, what he doesn't want to do is put low quality on the market. Gold that is contaminated can yield serious problems for the end user, depending on how the gold gets used. If you're refining for the jewelry industry and market lead contaminated gold, you'll have shot yourself in the foot. 

Think quality, guys. You'll never be sorry for doing a good job.

Harold


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## qst42know (Nov 19, 2008)

Cursed said:


> Oh and i found a 1940 edition of Hokes book through my public library I just have to wait for it to come down from the university of Nevada. I'd buy one but i was just informed yesterday that i will be eout of a job the end of next week hope gold prices take a big spike!!!



Links to the online version of Hoke's book can be found here on the forum in the Books section. Try this link.

http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=bbf3605938d177072edf8d1c6ca1365a

Postings by Lazersteve have links to his site to see videos of the required processes.


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