First time ever, observations and questions (AP type process)

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

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

owossopc

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2019
Messages
6
Okay, so we're finishing up the first part of my first AP type process. Like many new people, I made some mistakes, learned some things, you live and learn though right?

Okay. So probably the first issue I encountered (which I didn't expect to be an issue until about an hour ago) was that apparently I shouldn't be mixing types of material, because thats exactly what I did and for reasons Ill list later it became an issue.

So. My process was using a mix of Peroxide 3%, distilled vinegar 5%, sea salt, and fresh air from a low speed pump to agitate.

Within 30 minutes I noticed the clear solution becoming blue. At 24 hours, I saw my first gold fleck, aaaah the excitement.

I waited about 75 hours. The similar processed video I'd watched on youtube was 90 hours. I got impatient, and should definitely have waited.

In my mix was some seemingly gold plated pins, a pinless CPU, memory fingers, sim cards, bits of circuit board which had gold foil looking areas.

What came out was a mess. Now, I am still filtering some of the solution as of the time of this post, but-

the sim cards are NOT stripped, not even slightly.

the memory fingers are mostly stripped, and probably would have given me many more foils had I waited the other 15 hours?

the Cpu was pads are unscathed.

the gold foil boards are fully stripped, but seemed much thinner than the gold in the memory. most of this memory passes through the kitchen sieve. running the same material through a coffee filter makes a blue buildup with flecks in it, but I can't seem to recover them in any easy way.

I think this particular process would work great if only using gold finger material but the other stuff makes it hard to sort and spray the other foils loose.

Pics related.

From here, I plan to consume the foils in another solution that the youtuber posted, and precipitate the gold using ascorbic acid.

One thing I am curious- what is the turquoise color caused by? Is this silver from the solder? Copper? If either of them, what can be used to drop these metals from the solution after filtering the gold foils?
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9222.JPG
    IMG_9222.JPG
    167.9 KB · Views: 204
  • IMG_9223.JPG
    IMG_9223.JPG
    445.8 KB · Views: 204
  • IMG_9225.JPG
    IMG_9225.JPG
    548 KB · Views: 204
  • IMG_9228.JPG
    IMG_9228.JPG
    504.1 KB · Views: 204
  • IMG_9243.JPG
    IMG_9243.JPG
    412.6 KB · Views: 204
This is some of the recovered material so far.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9288.jpg
    IMG_9288.jpg
    473.8 KB · Views: 203
  • IMG_9290.JPG
    IMG_9290.JPG
    193.8 KB · Views: 203
owossopc said:
So. My process was using a mix of Peroxide 3%, distilled vinegar 5%, sea salt, and fresh air from a low speed pump to agitate.

I may be way wrong, but that mixture isn't even close to AP. AP or Acid/Peroxide is a mixture of Hydrochloric acid (or Muriactic Acid) and a slight amount of Peroxide and often a small air pump. With an air pump, you can get by without the Peroxide as well. It will remove the base metals under the gold when used correctly. Again I may be wrong but I think the vinegar and salt will dissolve the gold, if only slightly due to the weakness of the solution.

On the plus side, you didn't use a gallon of solution or a massive amount of material so any losses would be minimal. I can actually buy Muriatic acid at Ace Hardware cheaper than I can find vinegar and there are many members here who have a greater understanding of AP over your vinegar process; this makes getting help somewhat easier on the forum. Keep us posted on your venture, and good luck.
 
I wouln't be so opposed to other processes, but I don't have what you might consider proper ventilation. I have a HUGE open room in the back of my workshop, but It was suggested to me that AR type processing needs a fume hood. Feel free to weigh in on that, too.

I am going to process a measured amount using the same recipe, measuring the vinegar, salt, and peroxide (for ratio and cost purposes). Ill then compare the weight of material used, the amount recovered, and compare to cost. Again, process takes some 90 hours so I am going to guess Ill post results toward wednesday/thursday.
 
Strange, this doesn't look like ap. The bleu is from copper(II)acetate I guess, it is somewhat good soluble in water. Buy some HCl (muriactic) and hydrogenperoxide. Perform outside.
 
Also, the Gold you could potentially recover from all the material in those pictures once refined would be such a tiny amount of Gold that it would likely be invisible after 'dropping' from the solution when you precipitate from AR. As a beginner it is a bad idea to try and work with less than about 1g of Gold, so you really want to be starting with at least half a pound (0.25kg) of closely cut ram fingers.

Youtube is incredibly hit-and-miss, there are some high quality videos, but also a ton of crap.
 
kernels said:
Youtube is incredibly hit-and-miss, there are some high quality videos, but also a ton of crap.
And what always blows my mind is that it is the crap that has a ton of views while the good stuff only have a modest numbers of views.

Anyhow, mixing acid and table salt will create some hydrochloric acid in the mix and some will be released into your room. You might start to notice corrosion on exposed metal surfaces. Do your experiments outside or in a fume hood that can withstand acids.

You can do small experiments but until you have mastered the processes involved you will probably have too much losses along the way to get any gold in the end. That is why we recommend newbies to start with simple scrap as close cut fingers and a decent amount.... och, and follow well known procedures. Acetic acid isn't something we recommend here and you will not get a lot of help since no one here uses it.

Göran
 
Hey I am a beginner I am using vinegar hydrogen peroxide and salt to recover gold but when straining the liquid it comes out a light gray color and gold flakes was coming off but the liquid is dark and leaves the grey behind and can't see the gold. What is happening or what do i need to do
 
Collinspaul said:
Hey I am a beginner I am using vinegar hydrogen peroxide and salt to recover gold but when straining the liquid it comes out a light gray color and gold flakes was coming off but the liquid is dark and leaves the grey behind and can't see the gold. What is happening or what do i need to do


Recover gold from what?
 
The AP process is a method to dissolve the copper from underneath the gold plating leaving the gold floating away freely as a foil. The foil is then collected and washed before dissolving in a different bath.

It's not likely that your mixture of vinegar and salt, (don't know what the salt is supposed to do for you), is a strong enough acid to dissolve any copper. Edit to add, I should also read others posts as well. :oops:

I place my AP solution outside protected from rai and where no person or animal can get to it and leave it with a vented cover for a week, sometimes 2. And that's using 32% HCL, considerably stronger acid than vinegar.

If your vinegar and salt solution is actually dissolving copper, it may take much longer than the normal HCL solution.
 
rickbb said:
The AP process is a method to dissolve the copper from underneath the gold plating leaving the gold floating away freely as a foil. The foil is then collected and washed before dissolving in a different bath.

It's not likely that your mixture of vinegar and salt, (don't know what the salt is supposed to do for you), is a strong enough acid to dissolve any copper.

I place my AP solution outside protected from rain and where no person or animal can get to it and leave it with a vented cover for a week, sometimes 2. And that's using 32% HCL, considerably stronger acid than vinegar.

If your vinegar and salt solution is actually dissolving copper, it may take much longer than the normal HCL solution.

OK, my bad, I should fact check before I post and not after. :oops:

Adding salt to vineger actually makes HCL. So if you are worried about fumes from HCL, you already are making them.
 
Collinspaul said:
Hey I am a beginner I am using vinegar hydrogen peroxide and salt to recover gold but when straining the liquid it comes out a light gray color and gold flakes was coming off but the liquid is dark and leaves the grey behind and can't see the gold. What is happening or what do i need to do

The gold should be flakes or foils left in the paper filter, it won't be in the liquid.
 
Back
Top