AR questions, hcl and bleach questions

Hello all

My name is Bryan and I have many questions, first of all, is there any difference besides the chemicals between using AR or chlorine (Hcl and bleach)?

The second is if I have Escrap, extra jewelry scrap, and small gold flakes can I put all of those together and use either the AR or the chlorine method and which would be better?

now the problem I have had in the past is I have tried AR and I have got ok results but sometimes I often wonder if I should use nitric acid on this material before I use AR so it will dissolve the silver and then use AR on the rest at the end use nitric acid to clean everything up and then wash it? The reason I ask is I just want the gold button to be final and as close to pure as it can. I don't know what chemicals to use on everything and if I could get a little help that would be awesome and very appreciative, I downloaded and copied Mrs. Hoke's book and have it along with other stuff but I was just curious

BryanR7917 said:

first of all, is there any difference besides the chemicals between using AR or chlorine (Hcl and bleach)?

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There is a big difference. HCl and bleach will dissolve very thin gold or very finely divided gold like the powders from a sulfuric stripping cell. It will not be very effective on thicker material. AR will dissolve much thicker material.

The second is if I have Escrap, extra jewelry scrap, and small gold flakes can I put all of those together and use either the AR or the chlorine method and which would be better?

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In general, it is better to keep different types of material in different batches. If something goes sideways on one type of material, it only affects that batch of material, not the whole lot. With escrap, like the gold foils from fingers, you can often use HCl and bleach, but trying to use it on jewelry will not work very well.

now the problem I have had in the past is I have tried AR and I have got ok results but sometimes I often wonder if I should use nitric acid on this material before I use AR so it will dissolve the silver and then use AR on the rest

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It depends on the material. If the silver content is above 10% or so, AR may not dissolve all the gold because a crust of silver chloride will develop and stop the reaction. But just leaching in nitric probably won't accomplish much because only silver at the surface will dissolve before the gold stops the nitric from penetrating deeply enough to dissolve the silver deeper in the piece. This is where inquartation is useful.

Dave

Process jewelry scrap separately from escrap, and what do you mean "gold flakes". Where did said flakes come from, you must know that before you can refine them.

Never put anything into an acid without full knowledge of exactly what it is and what you can expect to happen in the acid. You should never just throw it all in together just because some of it is gold. It's what you don't know that will kill you.

No you cannot just put them in nitric to dissolve the silver first. The silver is bound with the gold and copper in an alloy and you can't selectively dissolve one and not the others.

AR is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids. This makes a really strong oxidizing acid that dissolves gold. AR evolves toxic NOX fumes.

HCL/bleach is Hydrochloric acid and sodium hypochlorite. The bleach when reacting with the HCL is the oxidizing agent that will dissolve gold. HCL/bleach evolves toxic chlorine gas, (which is the free chlorine in HCL that is doing the oxidizing to dissolve the gold).

Based on the questions you've asked I suggest you do much more reading in the tutorial section. Much more.

I first want to thank you for all the help, it is greatly appreciative

I first want to say to Rickbb what I meant by gold flakes was gold from panning from river gravels. This is what I meant by gold flakes.

Now I want to say thank you to FrugalRefiner for all of the information and you actually answered other questions I had and now do not need to ask, so thank you. This forum is the greatest, hope everyone has a great day.