Strange colour borax

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Ferrit69

Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2011
Messages
8
Location
County Durham, England
DSC_0011_crop_181x179.JPG
I melted a small quantity of electrical contacts today and the borax went blue. Has anyone seen this before and what metal has caused it?
I stopped at that point until I find out what it is.
 
Never melt electrical parts unless you know what's in them.

Looks like molybdenum blue.

Probably lots of white smoke?
 
I melt in good extracted area I thought of cobalt as it looks that colour, no white smoke when melted. Cadmium has not been used in contacts in England for a very long time the switches they came out of are only 1 year old.
 
Lino1406 said:
At temperature close to MPs of cobalt or Molybden borax should evaporate

As pure metals maybe but what's the effect of melting them with another lower melting point metal?
 
Lino1406 said:
At temperature close to MPs of cobalt or Molybden borax should evaporate
It’s not that they melt. The oxides become soluble in the borax.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top