I followed the instructions to the letter. But find my self shoving the Storm Percipatant to the AR and testing over and over that it is positive for Gold.
The same stroy with rinsing I must have ran 15 gallons or more over this mud only to have it laugh at me over and over and turn blue with the Aqua Ammonia.
Where am I now after evaporating the mud it now tests pure, I have some AR still showing Gold content. I almost want to point my grand dads gun at it to scare the gold out because pound after pound of Storm just does not get the job done or make sense as it is supposed to drop out the Gold pound for pound as it was explained to me.
I have plenty more boards to do and alots of SubZero and Storm to use
up but I am not looking forward to it. I only have about 55 more pounds of boards to go, I have the stuff all sealed up and locked up but at what point does it become a superfund site?
Make your aqua regia solution:
In a glass or plastic container, add 1 lb SubZero to ½ gallon of muriatic or hydrochloric acid. Do not use a metal container.
Before refining:
Cut off those portions of the board that have gold. Discard the rest. Chips, which have gold inside as well as outside, must be broken open. On a small scale, one tap with a hammer should suffice. With lots of chips, you might want to use a cement mixer.
Dissolving the gold:
The acid should be at room temperature. Place your boards into 2 identical glass or plastic container. Square or rectangular plastic tanks are generally the most practical for boards.
Cover your boards with the aqua regia solution that you made. The metal will begin to fizz and give off an invisible or slightly brown fume. You can cover the container, but do not seal it tightly because you don't want a built up of gas pressure. You can speed up the process by heating your solution, but this creates added hazard- hot acid fumes more rapidly and is more corrosive. Additionally, make sure that the Pyrex container in which you are heating the acid is designed for the stovetop, not the oven.
When the fizzing stops, then all the metal should be dissolved. At room temperature, dissolving time is usually between ½ hour and 2 hours. Check the boards to make sure all the gold has been removed and dissolved into the aqua regia acid.
Taking great care not to spill any solution, pour the acid into the other glass or plastic container. The aqua regia is not used up yet, so you can use the same acid to dissolve the gold off the second set of boards. You can continue to use this acid to, several times, to dissolve the metal off additional boards until it is no longer effective.
After the acid has been pour from the first container into the second, it is time to remove the boards. Remove the boards, one by one. If there is are any brown particles clinging to the boards, rinse them off into a plastic bucket or other similar container. These brown particles may be gold that has prematurely precipitated during the dissolving process. This is a result of the iron and steel in the boards. You can recover these particles later and put them in a future refining.
Adjusting the pH & Precipitating the pure gold:
When the aqua regia is no longer effective (no long dissolves the gold on the boards), it is time to recover the pure gold from the solution.
The acid will be a dark, emerald green color and should be clear (not murky or cloudy). If the acid is murky, it may contain particles and should be decanted again or filtered.
Add a pinch of urea to the acid. If it fizzes, add additional urea until it no longer fizzes. When there is no longer any fizzing, add 1½ tablespoons of Storm Precipitant for every ounce of dissolved metal (dissolved metal content, not just dissolved gold content). Immediately, the acid will change to a muddy brown appearance as brown particles of gold form in the acid. This brown "mud" is, despite its appearance, pure gold. If you want to speed the precipitation process, you can add the precipitant to very hot water before adding to the acid. This technique will precipitate the gold in only about 5 minutes (30-120 minutes is normal when not using this technique), but be aware that hot precipitant has a very strong, pungent odor.
Once precipitation is complete, test the acid for the presence of dissolved gold with Precious Metal Detection Liquid.
Testing to make sure no dissolved gold is discarded:
Precious metal detection liquid will detect the presence of dissolved gold down to 4 parts of gold per million parts of acid )detecting the presence of about 1/1,000th of 1 gram of dissolved gold. Testing for the presence of dissolved gold is absolutely necessary to insure that no dissolved gold is thrown away with the waste acid.
To test, first immerse the end of the stirring rod in the acid. Remove it and touch that end to a paper towel to make a wet spot. Put a drop of gold detection liquid on the wet spot on the paper towel. If any gold is still dissolved in the acid, the wet spot will turn a purple-black or a purple-brown. If you see this color change then give the precipitant more time to work and/or add more precipitant.
Rinsing the pure gold:
The acid should now be a clear, amber or a green color with a brown mud at the bottom. Pour off the acid into another container. If you have a filter, you can use it. Do not pour off any of the mud. The mud is pure gold.
When all the acid is poured off, add tap water to the mud. Stir and let the mud settle. Pour off the water into the container with the acid. If you have a filter, you can use it. Do not pour off any particles of brown. Repeat this rinsing 3-4 times or more.
Testing to insure purity:
Test with aqua ammonia to insure high purity of your gold. Place a drop of aqua ammonia test liquid on the wet gold mud. If you see any change in color to blue, even a very pale blue, rinse and test again.
Give the mud a last rinse, this time with distilled water.
Drying and melting:
Rinse the mud into a beaker that is made to be heated or into glass coffee pot. Put the beaker or pot on a hot plate to dry the mud. Do not preheat the hot plate or thermal shock may cause the beaker to break.
Melt the dried mud (now a powder). If using a torch, first wrap the powder in tissue paper and then soak that in alcohol. Also, use a Burno crucible. This will keep your gold from being blown away by the gas pressure from the torch. The gold will again take on the appearance of metal. If you've followed the instructions carefully, the gold will be 99.95 % pure with virtually no losses.
