Am i making a huge mistake refining???

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K

KEBinAZ

Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
7
Hello everyone,

So to begin, I'm a small scale Placer miner originally. A few months back, I had a friend convince me to help him extract pins and other parts from computer parts and old cell phones that he had a HUGE stockpile of.. since my claim had run out of pay and I was still waiting for my new claim permitting to be processed. I chose to "roll the dice" on this venture. Mind you my monthly expense budget between mining and living expense is razor thin as for any excess funding. Over the last several years I have been able to build my equipment to a decently fair setup as well as a very efficient foundry and coupellation processing plant to include an excellent sulfide classifier. Anyways, long story short I'm now sitting on 3000 grams of scrap gold that is for the most part roughly 95% copper, silver and gold mix ( at I believe it is consider the coupelation that has been done). I know nothing of chemistry but have been reading what I now believe to horrible " get rich quick" crackpots that made it seem so simple. I truly believed that AR would simply dissolve the gold and I be able to "filter" out the remaining. I know now that I am wrong (and am in over my head). I can't even find this hoke women's book on Google. I've already invested WAY to much on sodium nitrate, muriatic acid, sodium metabisulfite, urea, safety equipment, beakers and distillation equipment not including the time and effort and money spent during the cupelation. I have plenty of time for research and have started making a small laboratory with a sealed negative air ventilation chamber. But I barely have found this forum and the real knowledge I'm discovering here has made me even more terrified about dealing with chemicals. Honestly should I just cut my losses and walk away. Remember I have no hands on experience what so ever and I'm terrified about being hurt. I don't think can resell this stuff without spending even more money to do so and already bought out my friends end if the scrap gold (I don't like partners, they make a mess of things). Your expert and honest opinions would be greatly appreciated. Also what is the name of this hokes woman's book so I can find it and start reading it IMMEDIATELY.

nervously awaiting your response
K.E. Bahr
 
I don't know if this will your understanding of my situation but the majority if my income comes from selling the classified sulfide material to a cyanide "leaching" company. I couldn't begin to comprehend that nightmare. And before you ask, I've already spoke with about purchasing my scrap gold and they won't touch it.

Regards
 
As you read and study, sort the e-waste by type of scrap. Most components need a different approach. Some can be combined.
There are many recovery processes available to first separate the base metals from the precious metals.
Aqua Regia is a refining process, not often used to dissovle it all at once and can create a mess when tin in solder or brass is in the mix.
 
I believe Hokes book is out of print, a member here has scanned it and posted here as a PDF to download. Search the forum for it.

Depends on what kind of e-scrap you have whether or not you have a chance of getting some gold out of it.

Is it a mixed bag of everything, complete computers, etc. or has it been sorted and pulled apart and only the gold bearing parts left to deal with? Post some pics if you can, it will help us guide you in the right direction.
 
I'll save our new member the search. There are links to Hoke's book in my signature line below, to both a screen readable version and a printer friendly version.

Although the original version is long out of print, there are still reprints available for those who prefer a commercially printed copy.

Dave
 
By reading and understanding the processes and reactions created your fear of the chemicals will dissipate fairly quickly as you will know what and if any dangers are likely.
Refining is pretty simple but recovery is a whole different ball game and it’s the most important part of the whole process to becoming a competent refiner .
Im sure you can master this but it takes study and time and if you do your part and study we are happy to help you but and it’s a big but you have to do your part .
 
KEBinAZ said:
Hello everyone,

So to begin, I'm a small scale Placer miner originally. A few months back, I had a friend convince me to help him extract pins and other parts from computer parts and old cell phones that he had a HUGE stockpile of.. since my claim had run out of pay and I was still waiting for my new claim permitting to be processed. I chose to "roll the dice" on this venture. Mind you my monthly expense budget between mining and living expense is razor thin as for any excess funding. Over the last several years I have been able to build my equipment to a decently fair setup as well as a very efficient foundry and coupellation processing plant to include an excellent sulfide classifier. Anyways, long story short I'm now sitting on 3000 grams of scrap gold that is for the most part roughly 95% copper, silver and gold mix ( at I believe it is consider the coupelation that has been done). I know nothing of chemistry but have been reading what I now believe to horrible " get rich quick" crackpots that made it seem so simple. I truly believed that AR would simply dissolve the gold and I be able to "filter" out the remaining. I know now that I am wrong (and am in over my head). I can't even find this hoke women's book on Google. I've already invested WAY to much on sodium nitrate, muriatic acid, sodium metabisulfite, urea, safety equipment, beakers and distillation equipment not including the time and effort and money spent during the cupelation. I have plenty of time for research and have started making a small laboratory with a sealed negative air ventilation chamber. But I barely have found this forum and the real knowledge I'm discovering here has made me even more terrified about dealing with chemicals. Honestly should I just cut my losses and walk away. Remember I have no hands on experience what so ever and I'm terrified about being hurt. I don't think can resell this stuff without spending even more money to do so and already bought out my friends end if the scrap gold (I don't like partners, they make a mess of things). Your expert and honest opinions would be greatly appreciated. Also what is the name of this hokes woman's book so I can find it and start reading it IMMEDIATELY.

nervously awaiting your response
K.E. Bahr
Click to expand...
To clarify things, do you still have the scrap as it was ? Or do you have it smelted down ? From phrase "3000g Au that is for most part roughly 95% Cu", it is bit unclear.

Unsorted, not-depopulated boards will be extremely painful to process in large quantities if you do not have dismounted ICs and pins and all stuff from them.

If you have a lot of material (hundreds of kilos), which need to be picked through... I would focus more on straight pyrometallurgy instead of hydrometallurgy. Like Umicore or big boys are doing e-scrap. It goes straight to shaft-like furnance, flux is added and whole bulk lot is melted into the metal and slag portion. You get the raw metal ingots out, which contain pretty much everything - BUT with some clever redox operations in that same furnance, you will be able to get rid of the tin and zinc from the melt. And collect tin dioxide as valuable sideproduct.
This "purified" metal could be than electrorefined to produce raw copper and slimes which contain the gold and silver. You just roas and smelt them to get the gold.

For clarification, to dissolve 1 kg of copper base metal in AR, you need (roughly) 4 L of 30% HCl (just to make the CuCl2 in solution) and roughly 1 L of 50% nitric acid to oxidize that copper. Now imagine the hundreds of kilograms of material... You will create virtually swiming pool worth of acid heavy metal waste. On the other hand, with pyrometallurgy, the waste will be much more concentrated.

You can also study reverse electroplating method - for scrap that is conductive and gold plated - like pins. Uncovered plated parts will be stripped of gold, using concentrated sulfuric acid as electrolyte. Sounds scarry, but it could work wonders, can be scaled up quite a bit, and with strict safety measures, it is relatively tame process, no significant gasses, acid is reused...
 

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