100 Ounces of pins
- Thread starter tek4g63
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jmdlcar said:
Thank you Jack for that question. I should have already posted that information. I can be scatter brained some times.
I'll start from the beginning.
* Day one
-100 ounces of gold plated pins.
- One gallon of hydrochloric acid. ( meratic acid 32% bought at lowes ).
- One cup of 2% hydrogen peroxide ( CVS store brand )
- One fish tank bubbler with a custom made bubbling stone at the end of the poly urethane house I use.
All of this was put in a 3.5 gallon bucket that I use as my reaction chamber.
I let it all sit undisturbed for 7 days.
* Day seven
- Added one more gallon of hydrochloric acid because the solution was looking very dark.
I stirred it well and noticed a bunch of beautiful gold foils floating around, that let me know all is going well.
I only check it on the weekends because I know there is no way to rush this process without introducing problems, plus a watched pot never boils.
I will update on the status this weekend. Thank you for your interest.
Butcher, you were correct! It was just salt in my HCL/CL. Thank you for your help!
I will update on the status this weekend. Thank you for your interest.
Butcher, you were correct! It was just salt in my HCL/CL. Thank you for your help!
A
Anonymous
Guest
If you could have found nitric,for a reasonable price,you could have had all of them done in about 2 hours.tek4g63 said:
I don't know what your situation is,but if you plan on running this volume again,you may want to find some nitric.Not only do you have your material finished in a fraction of the time,but you will use about half as much nitric,as you will Hcl.
I found that 1 gal of HCL cost only $6.00 + tax but Nitric I found on eBay 1 pint for $39.99 + $10.00 shipping. So Nitric would cost a lot more beside it is a hobby for me and I have a lot of time for the HCL to work. Thanks Jack
jmdlcar said:
Well said Jack. that is my situation as well, although I would like to get some nitric acid one day just to experiment with. But thank you for posting your experience, because that's what I would like this post to be about. Not just me using the AP method but also the different ways pins can be handled.
So please anybody reading this that has pictures of how they process pins, and/or stories please share them here. Thank you
etack
Well-known member
tek4g63 said:
Nitric is by you and cheap ask farmers, nurserymen, or machine shops just to name a few people that use it. Its like e-scrap you just need to ask.
Eric
Geo
Well-known member
search for Butchers "killing two birds with one stone" post. he has a method of making nitric acid using a pickle jug, sodium nitrate, sulfuric acid, water and gold plated pins. you will have a clean nitric acid and clean gold foils at the end of the process, plus you will have some sodium sulfate.
maynman1751
Well-known member
I have searched, but can't find any practical use for Sodium Sulfate! What am I missing? Thanks in advance, John.
Nitric acid recipe:
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=315
Kill two birds one rock:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6199
Sodium bisulfate can be used like nitric acid; I use it to make ferrous sulfate.
Sodium bisulfate can also be used in a fusion with rhodium powders to make them water-soluble.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=315
Kill two birds one rock:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6199
Sodium bisulfate can be used like nitric acid; I use it to make ferrous sulfate.
Sodium bisulfate can also be used in a fusion with rhodium powders to make them water-soluble.
maynman1751
Well-known member
Butcher! I'm no chemical genius so bear with me. I asked about Sodium Sulfate and you answered about Sodium Bisulfate. What if any is the difference? 
Thanks Richard.
Thanks Richard.I think when the comes to use Nitric Acid I'm going to buy that chemical and not going to try and make it just to save some money. When trying to make anything that you can buy can lead into a problems beside if you buy the chemical it has a label on the bottle or box what in it. And that go with any other chemical that can be made. Thanks Jack
Formula for sodium sulfate Na2SO4 and sodium bisulfate NaHSO4, they both are salts of sulfuric acid and sodium metal, the Bisulfate has hydrogen in its formula so it is an acidic salt, sodium bisulfate can easily give up this hydrogen in a reaction,(acting much like sulfuric acid) like with another metal( like Iron if your making ferrous sulfate),if you reacted iron Fe in our example with sodium bisulfate NaHSO4 in water you could form a ferrous sulfate FeSO4 (copperas), and then the byproduct would be sodium sulfate,
Fe(S)+ 2NaHSO4(aq)--> FeSO4(aq)+ Na2SO4(aq) + H2(g)
evaporation of the solution above would form nice green copperas crystals you can use to test for gold in solution in a spot plate test, or you can use to precipitate gold from aqua regia, or for other reaction you may need ferrous sulfate.
When making nitric acid using sodium nitrate and sulfuric acid your salt byproduct would be a salt of sodium and a sulfate so you will make either sodium sulfate or sodium bisulfate salt in solution with your nitric acid, which one you form depends on the concentration of your sulfuric acid in the reaction with the nitrate salt, if making nitric acid without distilling I would make sodium sulfate, if distilling nitric to make nitric acid I would make sodium bisulfate, the concentrations and volumes of acid from these two reactions would also be different.
Sodium sulfate can be made into sodium bisulfate by reacting the salt in sulfuric acid in a heated reaction,
Na2SO4 + H2SO4 --> 2NaHSO4
Sodium bisulfate NaHSO4 can also be obtained as a byproduct from reaction of making HCl (using rock salt and sulfuric acid)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bisulfate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate
Fe(S)+ 2NaHSO4(aq)--> FeSO4(aq)+ Na2SO4(aq) + H2(g)
evaporation of the solution above would form nice green copperas crystals you can use to test for gold in solution in a spot plate test, or you can use to precipitate gold from aqua regia, or for other reaction you may need ferrous sulfate.
When making nitric acid using sodium nitrate and sulfuric acid your salt byproduct would be a salt of sodium and a sulfate so you will make either sodium sulfate or sodium bisulfate salt in solution with your nitric acid, which one you form depends on the concentration of your sulfuric acid in the reaction with the nitrate salt, if making nitric acid without distilling I would make sodium sulfate, if distilling nitric to make nitric acid I would make sodium bisulfate, the concentrations and volumes of acid from these two reactions would also be different.
Sodium sulfate can be made into sodium bisulfate by reacting the salt in sulfuric acid in a heated reaction,
Na2SO4 + H2SO4 --> 2NaHSO4
Sodium bisulfate NaHSO4 can also be obtained as a byproduct from reaction of making HCl (using rock salt and sulfuric acid)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bisulfate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate
Hi everybody!
Day 21
* My 2 gallons of AP is very dark and there is a large amount of gold foils floating around. There is still a bunch of unfinished pins in the bottom. I could feel them when I stirred it with a large plastic spoon. The dark color of the solution could be because the reaction of the base metals is still very active or because it is saturated with copper. So just to be on the safe side I added a third gallon of hydrochloric acid. (I was mistaken in my earlier post, I did not use my 3.5 gallon bucket, I used a 5 gallon one. Bad notes, sorry)
The way I look at it is, I can't use too much hydrochloric acid for my AP because if its not fully saturated by these pins I can reuse it for more pins or fingers. Plus I'm only paying like $ 6 a gallon so why not add more when needed, right?
Day 21
* My 2 gallons of AP is very dark and there is a large amount of gold foils floating around. There is still a bunch of unfinished pins in the bottom. I could feel them when I stirred it with a large plastic spoon. The dark color of the solution could be because the reaction of the base metals is still very active or because it is saturated with copper. So just to be on the safe side I added a third gallon of hydrochloric acid. (I was mistaken in my earlier post, I did not use my 3.5 gallon bucket, I used a 5 gallon one. Bad notes, sorry)
The way I look at it is, I can't use too much hydrochloric acid for my AP because if its not fully saturated by these pins I can reuse it for more pins or fingers. Plus I'm only paying like $ 6 a gallon so why not add more when needed, right?
jmdlcar said:
Not sure how much longer. It is taking a bit longer than I expected, but its not surprising. Many of the pins were fully plated with no exposed base metals. So they will take a bit longer for the AP to work is magic on them. I'm sure it would have went a bit faster if I had just started with 3 or 4 gallons of hydrochloric acid.
About the color of the solution. Yes and yes! It is green but so dark green it looks pitch black. That's normal though, when the reaction is in its full fury the solution can look black and after all copper is digested , if left alone will return to green. Unless it is fully saturated with copper then it will stay looking black. If it is truly saturated there would be a white powder on the bottom with the unfinished pins. I should have used the spoon to scoop up some pins to check for that, but I didn't.
tek4g63, If I would use AP then it would take 2 oz of HCL for 1 oz of pins. I came up with this when you said 3 gal of HCL to 100 oz of pins. If I'm wrong please tell me. I just don't know how much peroxide I need to use. Plus I know it takes air pump to make it work. I'm setting up for this process. Thanks Jack
Geo
Well-known member
guys, thats really not enough solution to be effective for that much material. it may be enough acid but not enough volume of solution. to add water to it now would create white copper chloride crystals. the next time add the water before the reaction starts. if you are worried about volume, you can always evaporate the solution back down. if you have 32% muriatic acid, dilute it with equal amounts of water. 2 gallons of acid with 2 gallons of water. even with hcl, remember to add acid to water and never water to acid.
tek4g63 said:
What is that white powder?
When I used HCL acid to remove the lead/tin solder from the boards, it had a white powder in the bottom of the beaker.
Then after I stored the liquid in a plastic bottle, it coated the inside of the bottle with a silvery layer.
So I expect its lead, it does move around a bit with the liquid which isn't what I expected to happen if its 'plated out' like a copper sulphate solution does onto steel.
Then, last night when I poured out the green/yellow acid from a gold/copper pins & HCL/Peroxide mix into a plastic bottle for storage & washed the remaining pins with clean hot water I ended up with a lot of those white crystals in the bottom of the wash solution.
They don't seem (I'm very sure) to be the same as the Lead solder white crystals.
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A while later I figure it out that its a copper product & indicates the solution is saturated with copper but with gold still in solution.
Its all in storage anyway.
