Auric chloride

What is the ratio of chemical mixture for auric chloride? Does it go stale? Is it necessary to add peroxide? Thanks in advance.

According to Steve's tutorial, Auric chloride is one of the last steps before dropping the gold out. If it goes "bad" I would doubt it, since the gold itself is in the solution. From this point is where you add the proper amount of SMB (sodium metabisufite) to drop the gold from the solution to make the black powder(gold) settle to the bottom, drain off or heat off any excess liquid then go to the final process.

Never_Evil said:

to drop the gold from the solution to make the black powder(gold) settle to the bottom

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If the gold comes down black, your solutions are very dirty. Given the opportunity, gold will come down dark brown to light tan-----with the color often an indicator of how clean the gold is. Drag down of other elements is often the cause of darkened precipitated gold. When it is properly washed, the color lightens considerably.

drain off or heat off any excess liquid then go to the final process.

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NEVER heat off the solution. Should you choose to do that, you concentrate the contaminants present, and they end up in the precipitated gold. It defeats the purpose of precipitation. After precipitation and proper settling, the solution should be decanted, then the gold washed properly to improve its quality. Melting the gold without the proper wash cycles is a mistake if your objective is pure gold.

Harold

Thanks guys. I was wanting to know how much sodium hypochlorite (bleach) to add to the muriatic acid.

I've watched Steve's videos. They are so awesome! I don't think he specified amounts in his auric chloride video. As I recall, he just said add bleach slowly. I would buy some of his merchandise, but he only takes paypal.

Thanks Harold. Somebody said color of gold precipitate has to do with particle size. I didn't know it was an indicator of contaminents.

I've got some brown mud that leaves a purple streak on the glass container. I wonder what that means. I don't think it is even gold. It was some odds and ends that I threw in that I didn't think had much gold in it.

I haven't had much success with this. I'm not patient enough to manually seperate things. I like to melt/burn/disolve it all down and throw it in a pot.

Joe,
The purple is gold, I have had an expeience with that.
Also I think Steve takes other types of payment, just
PM him and ask. Jim

Joe,

I will accept USPS money orders and cashiers checks as well. Paypal is the fastest way, but some folks are not comfortable using it due the information they require. Email me from my website and let me know what you are wanting.

The ratios of HCl to Clorox vary with the amount of gold you want to dissolve. The idea is to generate only enough Chlorine to dissolve the foils or powder. The HCl solution will not hold all the chlorine generated if we just dump it all in, so we add small amounts of Clorox to generate just enough gas to dissolve the gold. With thick foils or chunky gold powder it may take a few washes of HCl-Cl to fully dissolve all the gold and possibly even heating. Remember the hotter the acid the less chlorine it can hold, but the more reactive the chlorine is.

The main idea is to use the chlorine as it's generated to dissolve the gold, so it doesn't dissipate away into the air wasting the gas. By adding a little water you can increase the amount of chlorine that will remain in the solution, but the reactivity of the solution will decrease.

Optimally you want a Chlorine saturated solution of concentrated HCl and very thin foils or fine gold powder. The colder the solution the more chlorine it will hold. If you over do it with the Clorox or heating you just get a big cloud of wasted chlorine. A trick I've learned is to stir the warm solution to get the foils/powder in contact with the chlorine gas before it is exhausted from the solution. The solution is warmed by the reaction, not by heat addition under normal reaction conditions. I heat solutions when I am dissolving tougher gold filled shells and hardened powders.

The math for the chlorine water recipie calls for nearly equal parts of 32% HCl and 5% Bleach plus water. I designed this method to use as little water as possible to keep the HCl and Chlorine concentrations high.

If I have not explained this clearly feel free to ask more questions.

Steve

Steve, that answered all of my questions! I see why letting auric chloride sit won't help. It doesn't go stale, but the available chlorine dissipates.

Now, it has me thinking. As I recall, those toilet tank inserts are like 65% available chlorine. If a few pieces of one were dropped in the bottom of the dish, they should supply a steady stream of chlorine as they dissolve.

Joe,

I would tread cautiously into the area of using over the counter chlorination tablets. The point that is typically overlooked is the substrate materials and their effects on the precious metal products. The substrate can include buffers and other organic materials which could form organic compounds with your precious metals. Some of these precious metal organic compounds can be unstable under certain conditions (temperature, light, or shock sensitive compounds). Others may prevent your precipitants from working as expected. I have experimented with many sources of chlorine and the substrates can form very viscous and tar like by products that are difficult to break in acid conditions.

The phrase that I always keep in mind when perfecting new methods of dissolution is GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out ). If your chlorine source is 65% chlorine that means it's 35% unknown. The more unknown chemicals in your reactions the greater the chances that your reaction will not behave as expected.

Steve

I think the tablets contain a stabilizer to control the free chlorine. This is so the chlorine will stay locked in the liquid and not gas and escape. The only problem is as the chlorine is used the cyanuric acid, which is the stabilizer, continues to rise. This will eventually lock up all you free chlorine in solution.

Steve, Could that white precipitate everybody is wondering about be sodium chlorate ?

Joe said:

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Thanks Harold. Somebody said color of gold precipitate has to do with particle size. I didn't know it was an indicator of contaminents.

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It's true----the color is a good indicator of the size of the particles, but it doesn't hold true in all cases. For example, I don't recall every precipitating coarse particles of gold from dirty solutions, or ever precipitating a black color from a clean one. Cleanliness is a function of how the gold agglomerates as it precipitates, or so it seems. Very finely divided particles tend to distribute light in all directions, so they will appear to be quite dark as compared to larger particles that may be more directional due to crystalline structure of the particles.

I've got some brown mud that leaves a purple streak on the glass container. I wonder what that means. I don't think it is even gold. It was some odds and ends that I threw in that I didn't think had much gold in it.

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I'm not familiar with many substances that would leave a purple streak---although I can certainly understand how the brown mud could contain colloidal particles of gold. Have you tried hitting the streak with a little AR to see if it readily dissolves?

I haven't had much success with this. I'm not patient enough to manually seperate things. I like to melt/burn/disolve it all down and throw it in a pot.

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There's nothing wrong with incinerating and running things together-----but you must use the proper procedures along the way, and select that which is included in each given batch. Some may even require a second process before dissolving the gold. Dissolving base metals along with the gold is a mistake and should be avoided in almost all instances. There may be an exception------but the gold will almost always be of questionable quality.

Would you expect your car to end up clean if you washed it with muddy water?

Gold is far more critical if you want a high degree of purity. I didn't even allow people to handle my gold once it had been refined a second time.

Harold