added SMB

I have processed 5 gr. of gold foils. I added 400 ml of smb diluted with water and added it to the solution and the color changes did not happen[ this was tested positive] it lighted the color to atranlucent color, and small bubbles have formed on the sides of the glass container. why did it not turn to black and then to clear and what can i do .thanks steve

Could be a lot of things - we will need additional, specific info before you can get a definitive answer.
But for starters -
1) if you processed with HCl/Cl, you may free chlorine that should be evaporated off. Otherwise it keeps gold in solution, as its the Cl gas that does the actual dissolution of the gold.
2) If you processed using AR, you may have free nitric to expel. (see #1)
3) Is your SMB in a liquid form? If dry, & you're using a liquid measure, you have used way too much SMB, IMHO.
4) Did you stir vigorously & for several minutes after the addition of SMB?
5) Was your container scrupulously, chemically clean, free of any oils from your fingers &/or soap or detergent residue?

The smb was first in dry form and i mixed with water and then added it to the solution. the process i used is steves ap process. Ive done this before and it worked great. im thinking i put to much smb in the solution. So what can i do now? thanks VERy nervous about losing this steve.

and i did stir o man did i stir .

When you added your clorox, how much did you use? reason I ask, I used to dump extra clorox in to dissolve faster, reasoning (faultily) that i could always expel it later. Accurate, maybe, but not right, as it took more time, the powder I collected was usually very fine & hard to settle, & I had problems with formation of salts.

What I have done, more than once, is dilute to extent reasonable, for example, if I have 500 ml of solution, & my container is a liter, maybe dilute to 666 ml(?), more or less, (I believe that increasing solution volume decreases SMB saturation) stir thoroughly with a clean stirrer, then place it on a hotplate in a sand bath, to slowly evaporate to about 2/3 of its original volume. As it heats up, wave your hand over the vessel to your nose, which is several inches away, & see if you smell chlorine. You may only smell Sulfur dioxide (don't breathe it! :shock: ) but go ahead with evaporation.

As this progresses, you should notice a color shift, if Chlorine is the issue, towards a darker yellow. As it does so, wave-hand-sniff-test (WHST) again, see if Chlorine is being expelled. If no Clorox smell, remove from heat & proceed with what follows. If you still smell a little, I started what follows while the solution was still on the hotplate, then removed it from heat as change was observed.

Whatever you determine, carefully add shaved ice (I used snow this winter, which wouldn't create thermal shock areas in glassware like chunks of ice could./ No snow now - maybe i should buy a Sno-Cone machine! :lol: )Anyway, if added carefully, along with stirring, you should see the solution begin to go transparent, which is perfect, as you are at precisely the liquid/solid boundary of precipitation. Stir with a regular consistent circular motion - you should begin to see a little brown/black residue collecting in the center of the container. Continue stirring for several minutes more - the pile should get gradually larger. If so, you're home free!

If when you WHST, you smell only HCl & little or no sulfur smell, try adding TINY increments of SMB as you continue to stir. The "stir" issue, I first heard from lazersteve, & when I finally put it into practice, my gold powder became so much easier to work with.

If someone disagrees on how how ssstew2000 should proceed, please speak up, as I'm just a newbie myself.

good luck, man & keep us posted with your progress.
dtectr

Unless I am not understanding something, 5 grams of foils is
not a lot of gold. Maybe there's not enough gold to give you
the wow factor as your auric chloride goes from yellow to
clear to cloudy.

Just a thought. I normally waited until I had a bunch of gold foils
before I dissolved them in Hcl / Cl.

Correct, 5 gr of gold is not alot. but ive done this with even less than that and what you calll the wow factor[ chemical reaction] did occur. im just small time. what i collect and see on the streets as garbage. but now i have solution[worthless as is]. so i hoping you are correct i added some more water and im going to wait a see if it drops. i will continue to observe for now and then maybe try boiling and start over. pure gold in any amount is worth my attention. thanks. ssstew2000.

JUst thinking [again] :roll: what is the shelf life of SMB as mine is 6 months?

If you want to observe drop - 5g you will be best served to do it in 0.1-0.2l
If you drop small amounts of gold in a lot of solution you will be waiting ages to see superfine powder settle on bottom.

Edits made please reread and please give me an Idea. Gentlemen, the simplest person you've delt with has now entered the forum. For the past couple months I've been reading these posts and trying to gleen as much info as possible. I've reached the point I did a small aqua regia leach with some pc boards and fingers, about 1# in 500ml let it sit 24 hr and filtered, added urea till no fizzing, estimated less than .25 gm gold used same amount of SMB and precipitated a good 40% teaspoon of brown mud (gold?) saved that(dried, tested,melted =.17gm. I now tried a bigger batch, but am having some issues. I've leached 10# boards, fingers, memory stick contact points, cheap plated chains( just til plating came off then removed) some parts from old cell phone (wow, they have a lot inside) even a large melted nugget(14k from previous melt 11.5 gram). I did all the same steps figured at most 5 gram drop and added smb to match and got nothing, good black cloud inside my emerald solution and it was markedly clearer on the surface .I set it back to settle, came back 24 hr and all I have is some crystaline white clumps on the bottom (copper?) I reviewed all my steps can't find what I've done I'm sure I've done something. :x Yes I know I've heard it from my wife already, I'm sure I can be redeemed I just need to know how to solve this and how to get the gold, I cant loose all this.There are some very intelligent persons on this forum, I am at your mercy and am prepared to grovel for any bits of wisdom you deem I could use. Thank you greatly. Jim Went back tested again w/ stannous, yes very positive test spot solid black inside center to violet on edge.( test solution 50ml hcl w/ 3.33 gm tin powder, 3 day old) Should this whole solution be evaporated down and be reconstituted back w/ pure h2o?

At no point did I read about you making a test with stannous chloride.

Did you? What was the result of the test, assuming you did?

If not, I'm unable to help. There are many potential reasons why you may be experiencing difficulties. No better way to start narrowing down the cause than to determine where the gold is.

Harold

Link to a post about making stannous chloride: http://www.goldnscrap.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:stannous-chloride-test-for-gold-platinum-and-palladium-presence&catid=25:scrap-gold-9k-24k&Itemid=20

Harold_V said:

At no point did I read about you making a test with stannous chloride.

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I knew this was coming :lol: But this was also my first thought.

jwbrdkllr,

We cannot redeem you from your wife as your first test of 1# of the material you mentioned will not yield 1 teaspoon of the most fluffy gold precipitate I have ever seen.

As to your 10# pound lot you have mixed even a greater number of different materials each with their own problems.

By your comments it seems you have done some reading here. Take one type of material and process it alone, then ask for help if you have difficulties.

Right now you have a mutt mix that is near impossible to give “good” help on. Cement on copper and start over.

As stated, if you do not test with stannous, little in the way of help will be forthcomming.

jwbrdkllr said:

For the past couple months I've been reading these posts and trying to gleen as much info as possible. I've reached the point I did a small aqua regia leach with some pc boards and fingers, about 1# in 500ml let it sit 24 hr and filtered, added urea till no fizzing, estimated less than .25 gm gold used same amount of SMB and precipitated a good teaspoon of brown mud (gold?) saved that .

Click to expand...

It sounds like you found an idea off youtube, or bought someone's "guide" off FeeBay, then tried to modify it with real science from here. Not the first, but ...

jwbrdkllr said:

I've leached 10# boards,

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WHOLE boards??

jwbrdkllr said:

fingers

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How much weight or overall area?

jwbrdkllr said:

mem stick

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WHOLE sticks? How many?

jwbrdkllr said:

contact points

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were these gold plated, sweated from the reeds or whole reeds or ...?

jwbrdkllr said:

cheap plated chains

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if worth processing at all, these are best done in a sulfuric cell

jwbrdkllr said:

some parts from old cell phone (wow, they have a lot inside)

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they also have anodized aluminum which looks like gold but isn't, also fair amounts of tin-containing solder which makes a big gooey mess, if not dealt with first. Check out texans posts re: cell phone recycling.

jwbrdkllr said:

even a large melted nugget.

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was it a naturally occurring placer nugget or a bunch of karat gold melted together?

jwbrdkllr said:

I did all the same steps figured at most 5 gram drop and added smb to match and got nothing, good black cloud inside my emerald solution was markedly clearer I set it back to settle came back 24 hr and all I have is some crystaline white clump on the bottom (copper?) I reviewed all my steps can't find what I've done I'm sure I've done something. :x

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I think you may have figured out by now that its best to learn the processes first. Or, as my Dad says, "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it over?"

jwbrdkllr said:

Yes I know I've heard it from my wife already,

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Whatever she said, she's justified. Take my advice on this one (26 years and counting) say, "you're right, honey; I was a [insert your own self-deprecating expression here] but this time I'm learning to do it right!"

jwbrdkllr said:

I'm sure I can be redeemed I just need to know how to solve this and how to get the gold, I cant loose all this.

Click to expand...

When I was learning survival skills in the New Mexico wilderness, I learned that the best way to survive a life-threatening situation is not to get into it in the first place.
Wherever you got the info you started with (it can't be here) pitch it, start fresh. You can't mix a little bad info with a lot of good. A little dog poop in great brownies is still dog poop brownies.
Your gold, if there is any, isn't going anywhere. Try to learn one step well at a time & you'll be in charge before you know it.

Oh yeah - make yourself some stannous, learn how to use it, then report back (Have I heard that in this thread yet?) :lol:

hang in there & good luck!
dtectr
EDIT: spelling & grammar

"A little dog poop in great brownies is still dog poop brownies."

I'm gonna remember that....

OK got most of the values from last batch, got a full gram of precipitated gold from the small batch at the end. I decided I would melt it down tonight and used alcohol to get from dried dish to crucible added a tsp of borax to cover and turned on the heat,(cheap little chinese smelter) all hunky dori till looked at it after about 1/2 hr no gold, no molten metal just melted borax, has anyone ever seen this befor? It was a good half teaspoon of dried precipitated gold AR'ed twice nice clean shiny gold. Could it get suspended in the borax? I've never seen that but this is the first time I tried melting such fine particle gold, anybody got any ideas, much appreciated, Jim.

I haven't seen anyone here (but HAVE seen on OTHER sites :roll: ) the recommendation to bury gold in borax, then melt. If you have clean gold, the dish need only be coated with fused borax. The borax burial method is a great Youtube/internet/boloney answer - it shields contaminated metal from oxygen, which can make it appear purer than it is. This is a favorite of the "a little knowledge" gurus who are a blight online - Used intentionally, with purpose, it will absorb only oxides of other metals. But too much, & you have a pile of fused gunk.

Do you have a thick, dark, funny-colored pile in your casting dish? Your gold is in there somewhere. If you're using something other than a properly cured casting dish, you're not following the advice offered & re-offered (& re-offered, oh well, you see where I'm going ...) here, so results are BOUND to vary.

What were you trying to melt in? Do you have any photos?

Could it get suspended in the borax?

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Absolutely, that's exactly where your gold is. Molten borax is very viscous. Reheat your borax adding pinches of soda ash until all the borax is liquefied. The soda ash will fluidized the thick sticky borax and allow your gold to settle to the bottom.

Could Sodium Bicarbonate be used in place of Soda Ash?