# Forgot to add urea..



## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

Hello guys, in brief I added my scrap gold to aqua Regia and it turned dark green then I filtered it.. So far so good... Thing is I added sodium disulfite right away without any urea and it gave me a light grey powder in the bottom .. I left it like that before I mess it up more.. Tried to look on the forum for a while but found no solution for this. Help appreciated  .. Pictures attached


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## patnor1011 (Apr 16, 2016)

Why sodium disulfite?


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## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

Sadly the video I followed seemed simple didn't realize it was crap :/ is this problem solvable?


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 16, 2016)

Mark henary said:


> Hello guys, in brief I added my scrap gold to aqua Regia and it turned dark green then I filtered it.. So far so good...


Not really. We usually try to eliminate as much of the base metals as possible before dissolving our gold. It provides much more reliable results.



> Thing is I added sodium disulfite right away without any urea and it gave me a light grey powder in the bottom ..


We don't usually recommend using urea, so it's good that you didn't add it. You didn't mention testing your solution with stannous chloride, so we don't know whether you had any gold in your solution or not. You didn't say how much SMB you used. Was it a teaspoon? A cup? A pound? Using more than is needed can result in a contaminated precipitate when you have a mix of metals in solution because you dissolved everything together. Did you add the SMB as a powder or did you dissolve it first?



> I left it like that before I mess it up more..


That was a good move! Set it aside while you study and you'll be able to recover it when you have a better understanding.



> Tried to look on the forum for a while but found no solution for this. Help appreciated  .


It will usually take more than 30 minutes to find your answer. The forum is a vast library of information, but because this is a forum, it's scattered around.

Before you can do anything else, we'll need to know where your gold is. It could be in the undissolved material you filtered off of your original solution, in the grey powder you've precipitated, or in your solution. Testing the solution with stannous would be the first step. You can learn all about using stannous in the book in my signature line. Download a copy, get comfortable, and study it till it makes sense.

I also like to recommend that all new members read through the Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum thread. It will get you off to a good start here.

Best of luck,
Dave


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## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

Thank you very much, ill go get some stanos solution to test tomorrow or whenever possible soon, the amounts as following > 0.450 liter of HCL .... 0.150 of Nitric acid.... and like 0.5kg of gold plated stuff, like pins gold fingers from RAM etc... then after filtration from the dirt and crap, i added like 4-8 spoon full of Sodium di sulphite


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 16, 2016)

Mark henary said:


> Thank you very much, ill go get some stanos solution to test tomorrow or whenever possible soon, the amounts as following > 0.450 liter of HCL .... 0.150 of Nitric acid.... and like 0.5kg of gold plated stuff, like pins gold fingers from RAM etc... then after filtration from the dirt and crap, i added like 4-8 spoon full of Sodium di sulphite


You've made some classic mistakes, all too common when people watch some youtube videos. You would have been much better off processing the different types of materials by different methods. We usually use about as much SMB as we expect in gold. 4-8 spoon fulls was probably way too much.

Getting some stannous is a good start. Reading Hoke's book will teach you how to use it.

Please follow the link I provided to help you understand our expectations here. Proper spelling and punctuation are very important here, as a small mistake can result in many problems. This forum is international, and many members have to use translation software to read it. Small mistakes can make posts unintelligible. We expect members to take their time when composing a post. Use the Preview button to proofread your posts and correct mistakes before pushing the Submit button when posting.

Dave


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## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 16, 2016)

Mark henary said:


> Thank you very much, ill go get some stanos solution to test tomorrow or whenever possible soon, the amounts as following > 0.450 liter of HCL .... 0.150 of Nitric acid.... and like 0.5kg of gold plated stuff, like pins gold fingers from RAM etc... then after filtration from the dirt and crap, i added like 4-8 spoon full of Sodium di sulphite



Does your sodium disulfite have its chemical composition listed on the bottle?

Dave is spot on (as always) -on all of his remarks.

You should have treated the gold to remove contaminants(base metals) first.

To me, it looks like a bunch of copper and junk in your solution, so most likely, the gold (as black powder) was filtered off.-hopefully you saved them, for if so, we can most certainly help you!

Urea is no good...in the beginning of the forum, it was used, but once GRF started growing, it became known how substandard it truly is. Fertilize your lawn with it... Just dont put it in your refining solutions, as it can form unwanted compounds.

I may have missed it--, but what exactly WAS your scrap?
ESCRAP? gold karat scrap?

You may not have enough gold to even worry about fixing this err(if it was just a little escrap)... But, the experience granted from learning by your mistakes is more valuable than the gold anyways (to me, at least)

Edit to add: i didnt mean for my words to xome across as being sooooo rude and unwelcoming, but sometimes (more than not) they do.

Please dont take them as a shot at you, for they are not/were not intended as such. Trust me when i say, we have all had blunders....mine are so high up there i cant even begin to count them.


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## solar_plasma (Apr 16, 2016)

500g are a lot, if it was mostly metal by mass. 0,75 L of acid will not dissolve that much metal. Maybe something like 150g would dissolve. Did you have any solid metal left? If so, the gold plated back onto any base metals left - if it dissolved at all - as soon as all NOx gasses were gone and the reaction stopped.

*edit:* After you added too much SMB=sodium metabisulfite=Na2S2O5=in some languages also called Natriumdisulfit, ýou had used up any HCl, too, if it wasn't used up already by the excess of base metals. So, it couldn't react to SO2 and Na2SO4 anymore. The white powder at the bottom is most likely the [stt]SMD[/stt] SMB you added.


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## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

Sodium metabisulfite | Na2O5S2 --------- is what i added on the last step, i know it might not worth it. but i'd like to get it to prove my success on this experiemt.. the stuff i used were gold plated pins extracted from CPU / HDD / Motherboards.. and gold fingers from Graphics cards. that's it. i'll do what dave asked to test where's the gold, i didnt throw anything from what i filtered, still got all the dirt i filtered just incase!


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## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 16, 2016)

Mark henary said:


> Sodium metabisulfite | Na2O5S2 --------- is what i added on the last step, i know it might not worth it. but i'd like to get it to prove my success on this experiemt.. the stuff i used were gold plated pins extracted from CPU / HDD / Motherboards.. and gold fingers from Graphics cards. that's it. i'll do what dave asked to test where's the gold, i didnt throw anything from what i filtered, still got all the dirt i filtered just incase!




Thats excellent news!
If we throw nothing away, that means we have lost nothing. So thats great.

But, yes, most likely, tour gold cemented bsck onto the copper. There may be some that stuck in solution, but it will now be on the bottom of the beaker as you have added SMB, so yes. 

I would suggest to you, follow one forum members advice (we will all help you, but there are many ways to skin a cat, and getting advice from multiple people may get a little confusing, as one person may start at the paws, another at the tail)-bad analogy, especially since that idiom may not translate well.

But, you have done the best thinf you can do, come to the GRF.

Keep us updated, as everyone here likes a good success story


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## solar_plasma (Apr 16, 2016)

> but i'd like to get it to prove my success on this experiemt.


umm, this is no success and will never be a success, it is not even an experiment, it is a mess, but after some reading you will be able to fix it.

After you did, like Dave said, you should leave it a save place for some weeks, while you are reading. Time is on your side. If you rush things like most of the many made-a-mess-folks, who came here, did, there will be 2 days of talking back and forth, stupid questions, stressed answers and in the end we do not hear anything from you anymore. Do your self a favour and be one of the 1% who are not like this.

After you read, you will understand our answers.


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## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

will do plasma! will do all the reading from tomorrow on first, then go back to u guys on this post, i don't like too much talking either  will read and come back, thanks a lot anyway!


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## Mark henary (Apr 16, 2016)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> Mark henary said:
> 
> 
> > Sodium metabisulfite | Na2O5S2 --------- is what i added on the last step, i know it might not worth it. but i'd like to get it to prove my success on this experiemt.. the stuff i used were gold plated pins extracted from CPU / HDD / Motherboards.. and gold fingers from Graphics cards. that's it. i'll do what dave asked to test where's the gold, i didnt throw anything from what i filtered, still got all the dirt i filtered just incase!
> ...


Thank you! i will update it once i test it  thanks a lot!


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## butcher (Apr 16, 2016)

Mark henary,
First let me welcome you to the forum.
Recovery and refining is not difficult, but it can be a challenge to learn in the beginning. You are not going to learn it by watching videos, or by reading a few articles. it will take a lot of research on your part, and it will take time to get started.

Hoke's book is recommended because it is written for the non-chemist, and is an excellent book, reading it until you understand the concepts, and doing the getting acquainted experiments will be one of your best options, the book will not discuss recovery from electronic scrap, or ore, but it will give the many of the principles, and important issues we deal with in these areas.

The forum is a vast library of information, it is a bit hard to weed through the talk of the forum, but the information is there. 

Some places to get started are:

General chat section: General reaction list, Guide to the forum, Welcome members...

Safety section: Dealing with waste, Elephant in the room, This section is one of the most important sections to study, a few grams of recovered gold is not worth your health or your life. Or the lives of your family or neighbors.

I see you have no clue of what your doing at this point, The best advice I can give is to stop doing and start studying. 
At this point you will do everything wrong, From using too much acid, to putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. Loosing your gold with no understanding of why...

You may or may not have gold in the beaker, the gold may still be with your original material (cemented back out of solution onto the base metals), you basically dissolved a bunch of trash and that is what you have now, a bunch of trash that may or may not contain your gold. You added a reagent and precipitated a mess.

keep going this way and that is all your going to learn, how to make messes, and how to try and get back out of them. Without gaining any real understanding of this complicated art or skill.

We can help you get out of this mess, and find your gold. Finishing with this mess to help you deal with it safely.
But you should not make another mess any time soon.

Learning this skill takes a lot of work, like chemistry, or other fields of professional work, it is not going to be something you will learn to do overnight. Or by reading a few hundred how to articles, or watching a few hundred videos, You will need to understand the basic principles, gain a good understanding of the processes and procedures, learn how metals and the acids and reagents react with each other chemically, safety... Along with a thousand other things, even before beginning, if your goal is to become successful, or learn this profession. You have to really be dedicated to learning it. 

You will have to study to learn to process, recover, and then refine gold, or precious metals, the best way to do that at this point is to put away the chemicals, and start using the best tool you have your mind, and study to gain the understanding.

Trying the chemistry at this point is not only deadly dangerous, but will get you no where.
At this point you will do every thing wrong, make all of the mistakes a new-by makes. Repeating the same old mistakes most all of us made, when we began trying to learn this skill.
Making messes doing very dangerous things, with no understanding of the dangers involved. loosing our gold and then scratching our wooden heads, wondering what went wrong, and where all of our gold was going.
The list of things you can do wrong, or that can go wrong,are never ending.

The way to do it right is to spend your time getting an education and an understanding first, of the chemical reactions, and the fundamental principles involved. Understand the dangers, and how it is done safely. Learning how to deal with the toxic wastes, and protect yourself from deadly gases, and the many other dangers in this field of work, How to not make mistakes, or explosive reactions with the chemistry involved...

After you spend a lot of time studying (in Hokes), and the forum, it will be easier to begin learning with a more simple material at first.

Like sterling silver, karat gold, or memory fingers... Studying each step in preparation, recovery, and refining for the material of choice. The simpler materials will have less base metals and associated problems to deal with, the results will give you a better understanding of the principles you are studying, and help you understand better when you begin working with the harder materials which can create more problems in recovery, or refining.


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## g_axelsson (Apr 16, 2016)

Just a few points, the most important things have already been said on this topic by Dave and Björn and Butcher.



Topher_osAUrus said:


> Urea is no good...in the beginning of the forum, it was used, but once GRF started growing, it became known how substandard it truly is. Fertilize your lawn with it... Or watch some codyslab videos and make some nitrates with it... Just dont put it in your refining solutions, as it can form unwanted compounds.


I haven't seen that experiment on Cody's lab (youtube) but he's not a good role model on safety in the lab and I can't comment on whatever video you are referring to... but urea nitrate is an explosive made by mixing nitric acid and urea and one of the reasons we don't recommend using urea in refining. There are so much better precursors for making nitric acid that are safe (at least of exploding) so I would strongly recommend to not using urea in this process.



Mark henary said:


> Thing is I added sodium disulfite right away without any urea and it gave me a light grey powder in the bottom


One of my first refining trials I managed to precipitate a white crystalline powder from a dirty solution... copper chloride. It is soluble in HCl and adding a bit more HCl to your solution might dissolve it.
A warning though, if you have used up all free HCl in your solution an addition of HCl might turn any SMB into SO2 gas and create a boil over. Do a test on a small sample at first before treating the large batch.

And use a catch basin just in case of a boil over.

To recover from a mess like this, use copper to cement any values and stannous for testing where any dissolved values are. But first of all, store in a safe place and read, your gold isn't lost until you throw it away, just misplaced.

Göran


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## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 16, 2016)

Sorry, didnt check the board before i messaged you. Goran

The video i was referring to was making gunpowder from urine.

He states the urea in urine is used to decompose organic matter (straw in this case) and eventually break down and turn it into potassium nitrate

I figured, cut the middle man (pee) out...make aqueous urea...then put on the straw as he states..

I didnt mean to give the implication thst it should be added to nitric acid directly

Ill shutup now
-forget wverything i have said


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## g_axelsson (Apr 16, 2016)

No worries, that's why we are reading all posts on the forum.

Btw, the spammer has been booted off the forum, some random poster from Cameroon of all places...

Göran


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