Hi my Friends!
I haven't had much time for scrapping with out of town work, the divorce and working on the house. Scrap is piling up. I was approached by a person who was desperate for some quick cash. she offered 22-23grams of 14K jewelry for $75 U.S. ( old rusty scale I had to use at that location)
14grams is pieces without diamonds, I'm processing those now. will remove the stones and do the rest later.
After melting the 14 grams with some old US silver coins in order to bring the gold content down to around 25%, I poured the molten alloy into cold water.
The resulting corn-flaked alloy was placed it a beaker and covered with distilled water. The beaker was heated on a hot plate. 70% nitric acid was added a few mls. at a time.
The nitric reacts with the silver and copper but not with the gold. Each nitric addition causes the reaction to begin and produces red nitric fumes. ( before attempting to do this, please read about safety. These red fumes are deadly and will kill you. No respirator will protect you from these fumes and the processing must be done under a fume hood or outside with the wind taking the fumes away from you!) When I reach the point where I add a couple mls. of nitric and it no longer produces a reaction and red fumes it means that all of the silver, copper and other unwanted metals have been dissolved and are now in the solution. The remaining solids should be relatively pure gold sponge. Ready to be refined.
I haven't had much time for scrapping with out of town work, the divorce and working on the house. Scrap is piling up. I was approached by a person who was desperate for some quick cash. she offered 22-23grams of 14K jewelry for $75 U.S. ( old rusty scale I had to use at that location)
14grams is pieces without diamonds, I'm processing those now. will remove the stones and do the rest later.
After melting the 14 grams with some old US silver coins in order to bring the gold content down to around 25%, I poured the molten alloy into cold water.
The resulting corn-flaked alloy was placed it a beaker and covered with distilled water. The beaker was heated on a hot plate. 70% nitric acid was added a few mls. at a time.
The nitric reacts with the silver and copper but not with the gold. Each nitric addition causes the reaction to begin and produces red nitric fumes. ( before attempting to do this, please read about safety. These red fumes are deadly and will kill you. No respirator will protect you from these fumes and the processing must be done under a fume hood or outside with the wind taking the fumes away from you!) When I reach the point where I add a couple mls. of nitric and it no longer produces a reaction and red fumes it means that all of the silver, copper and other unwanted metals have been dissolved and are now in the solution. The remaining solids should be relatively pure gold sponge. Ready to be refined.
