# Poor man's AR



## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

Hello guys
I've made my first experience this weekend. 800 grams of ceramic processors added water, HCL and Sodium Nitrate, let it boil and Brown and yellow gases came out. the reaction stopped and the processors pins and gold plated turned clear. Removed the solution to other jar with ice. and let it rest. The solution has turned dark green and test with stanous didn't come up any color. I've made everything acording with samuel-a video with poor man's ar, and followed steve's guide.
Where did i went wrong?
What should i do?

Thanks


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## maynman1751 (Apr 14, 2012)

My guess would be that all the base metals did not dissolve in the first run and your gold cemented back out on the base metals. You could run your material back through another AR process, but I would wait to see what others may tell you.


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## samuel-a (Apr 14, 2012)

Hi nmlfreitas



nmlfreitas said:


> the reaction stopped and the processors pins and gold plated turned clear



What does that mean exactly?

Share some more details with us, such as:
how much HCl used?
how much nitrate was added?
did you remove any metalic lids beforehand?

There are many possible sources to your problem, tell us exactly what you did and we may be able to help you.
Also, share with us your safety arrangments (hope you made some).


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

i think i may have done it bad because i was inspecting the broken cpu's and they still have the golden pins some are white but a few.
The golden top lids i don't have any of them. i guess they are dissolved on the solution.(?)
I think i didn't let the reaction finish.
some photos


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

Hello Samuel



samuel-a said:


> What does that mean exactly?
> 
> Share some more details with us, such as:
> how much HCl used?
> ...


Sam if you notice on the left side of the picture with the processors some of then a few are like white

I have used HCL until the processors were covered with.

I used 3 tea spoons of sodium nitrate and safety gloves and googles

Here it goes another photo


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## samuel-a (Apr 14, 2012)

nmlfreitas

I now have every reason to beleive you did not run the reaction to completion.
Though, you being new to this, i would also question your testing abilities, you must keep that in mind, no one becomes familiar with SnCl2 testing over night.
So, to stay on the safe side, filter the questionable solution (as it probably have AgCl solids in it, keep the filter and AgCl) and add a tea spoon of SMB and let it sit for few days, IF traces of gold had been dissolved, they will sit on the bottom as bearly seen layer.

In the mean while, run your batch with AR again and this time allow it to react until all metals are dissolved.
HCl can be used excessively (limited only by your waste disposal abilities and beaker size), but add the nitrate slowly and allow each addition to react completely before the next one.


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

Thank you once again Samuel.
I forgot to tell you that there were a few bubles coming up when i put the solution into other jar with ice.I think i didn't wait enought because from the adding of sodium nitrate until i put it into another jar it was 1 hour and 30 minutes, maybe not enought time.
Maybe a stupid move, but i'm ready to learn with mistakes. I also guess that the solution didn't react until it was over.
So i will run the same processors again tomorrow and see how it goes. This time more carefull.I will add sodium nitrate more carefully, but how can i be sure that 
the reaction is over, i mean once you add the last spoon of sodium, and it stops bubling, should the processor pins be without the golden color?

in the meanwhile i will do as you told me, filter the "half way" solution
and add smb all let it rest. if there is gold on it, it will drop, if not there is no reason to run the solution into AR again is it?

Thanks Samuel


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## martyn111 (Apr 14, 2012)

nmlfreitas said:


> should the processor pins be without the golden color?



There shouldn't be any pins to have the golden colour, if there are any pins left the values will cement out onto the metal pins, therefore you will have no values in solution, you must dissolve all metals to get the values into solution.


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

Update - I have filtered the half way solution.
here it goes one picture of the filtered action, i really don't know what it is....


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## pgm (Apr 14, 2012)

keep that done bin anything....

can you take a picture of the liquid and did you test the liquid for gold

if you tested show a picture of this too..

take a picture from a few angles and have a torch at the bottom....need a picture of the liquid from the bottom...put the beaker in higher position...look at some of my pictures and you will understand

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=8401 

i really like the fact you have taken pictures. A picture can explain quite a bit..


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 14, 2012)

The Stanous test came up with white colour, i supose its a mash made of "garbage"´.
Can it be?


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 15, 2012)

Hello guys
Here it goes some pictures of second try.
I have most of the processor pins on the bottom they are out of the processors.
what do you think, looking good?? Should i have pins on the solution or should they all be dissolved?


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 15, 2012)

Read Hoke,

If that is AR, then all metal should be dissolved, if not something is not correct. It could be something in the water, it could be that whatever you put into solution wasn't what you thought or the correct strength or the correct ratios. 

What I'm really concerned about is the fact that you are not using something under your beaker to catch anything that might spill over. Also your beaker could fail for any number of reasons even if it is the proper beaker. If the consumption of metal by AR causes bubbling and your AR spills over onto the top of your heating pad it could be very very bad indeed, specially if it's made out of Al.

If you stop what you are doing, and read Hoke, you will at the very least know exactly what to expect, and if a reaction goes wrong, you will know where it failed.


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 15, 2012)

SBrown said:


> Read Hoke,



I've read Hoke two times i know what should be expected, the components that i used are correct both HCL and Sodium Nitrate, what you must understand is that i read a lot of things but as you know reading is one thing and doing it it's another, questions will allways come. As for the beaker i will fix that, you are right.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 15, 2012)

nmlfreitas said:


> SBrown said:
> 
> 
> > Read Hoke,
> ...



I shouldn't have assumed you didn't read Hoke. Sorry about that.

You are right, you read Hoke so you should know what to expect, but that there will still be questions. I have tons of questions, lol...


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 15, 2012)

Hi guys.
So this time i waited until there were no metals left to process i removed the processors out of the solution and added ice into other jar.
I ended up with this solution, it seens to me that silver choloride is starting to form on the bottom.
What do you guys think this looks like?


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## philddreamer (Apr 15, 2012)

Did you add some sulphuric? This will make the lead, if any present, also precipitate at this point.

Take care!

Phil


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## pgm (Apr 15, 2012)

I like these pictures but you are very lucky....i have broken many beakers.....please please put a buffer in between the hotplat...

best thing to use is a foil with sand and then you need to make sure the hot plate sits inside a ceramic or plastic container just in case...

the foil is what you use for pie making add some clean sand and put the beaker on it this will limit the thermal shock.

sorry i can not help with this process as i only use HCL + HNO3 to process

keep testing and post pictures of the results....of the test and i think you need a bigger beaker...or else it will over flow


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 15, 2012)

philddreamer said:


> Did you add some sulphuric?


Yes i added some sulphuric 


pgm said:


> I like these pictures but you are very lucky....i have broken many beakers.....please please put a buffer in between the hotplat...
> 
> best thing to use is a foil with sand and then you need to make sure the hot plate sits inside a ceramic or plastic container just in case...


Thank you for your advice i will take care of it.


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## samuel-a (Apr 15, 2012)

Looking good.

Follow the rest of the steps:
- test with SnCl2
- filter while cold or dilute
- precipitate gold
- clean it
- melt it
- show off your button in the gallery section


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## lazersteve (Apr 16, 2012)

You should add your nitrate in several doses not all at once. Don't stop at a predetermined point based upon a set amount of nitrate. If you don't do the math you will be flying blind and will have to judge the endpoint of the reaciton by the metals remaining on the scrap. Even if you do the math you still will have to judge the endpoint of the reaction by the remaining metals on the scrap, not the amount of nitric used.

The yellow/white powder can also contain tungsten oxides which will not wash out. They can be removed from your gold solution with several filter cycles with lots of rinsing.

Steve


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## nmlfreitas (Apr 18, 2012)

lazersteve said:


> You should add your nitrate in several doses not all at once. Don't stop at a predetermined point based upon a set amount of nitrate


Hi Steve, what i have done was put nitrate in the solution several times.I was checking the evolution but looking inside the jar, or taking one to see how it was going .
I have the final result i had a lot of fun testing with stannous and all that stuff thanks to you guys.
I ended up with 1.2g AU. I made the test using more less 700g of ceramic cpu's( 2x Pentium pro and rest pentium 1 and 486). I have to say i've made stupid thing during the test, i didn't remove the golden on the top (like the ones on Pentium pro), don't know if it makes difference or not, i made a mistake in the beginning and stopped the reaction like you can see on the first post.
I have some questions.I'm a bit disappointed to be honest i was expecting about 2g or a bit more. 
When its the right time to stop adding smb to drop the gold ? I put two spoons, and waited 24 hours, tested with stannous, positive, add a little more, and then filter. Should i put more until it's negative, or i will get false positives? 
Should i run the broken cpu's into another AR like i've read here on the forum? I know i'm a rookie but how much do you guys think i could get on this amount of cpu's. 

Thank you all


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