Anyone know how the Shor Simplicity System works?

[bswartzwelder]

I am not a big fan of Shor when it comes to recovery or refining of gold. I don't like the fact that they make you keep coming back to them and paying an exorbitant price for common chemicals that most of us have used. Having said that, they have a method (Shor Simplicity System) which looks a little like a sulfuric cell except it uses a "special salt water bath". In their words, "To the water is added a powder which turns the gold, but not the other metals back into solid form.". This system uses some form of ceramic cell. Is this something people on the forum use? Has it been described on the forum? They use three chemicals which they don't tell you what they are. They are: GC Salt, Odor Free Precipitant, and a Catalyst.

I have asked Shor for the MSDS sheets for the chemicals they supply for the acid system. What I got did not meet the requirements of the Federal Government. They listed the chemicals by the name of storm precipitant, but did not list what chemicals it was comprised of. Same thing for the "Sub Zero". Yet the MSDS sheets say they are supposed to say what chemicals are in each.

I have not seen any information on the Simplicity System, but have also not seen where it couldn't be used indoors. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[its-all-a-lie]

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=13335&hilit=shor+simplicity+system

 

[srlaulis]

I like to run in the opposite direction of Shor anytime I come across one. :lol:

 

[bswartzwelder]

I hope I have not caused a bunch of trouble by mentioning the Shor Simplicity system. If I have, please accept this as my most sincere apology. I do know this system crops up on the forum from time to time, but aside from determining what the chemicals used actually are, I was wondering how tha actual system works. You put X in one chamber, Y in another and apply DC power to it and somehow, almost magically it seems to produce almost pure gold with no really dangerous chemicals, fumes, or anything else that's bad. My interest was to try to deplate some scrap which has a gold plating on it without using highly concentrated sulfuric acid (which I purchased). I found his patent number and will try to get a copy of it. Most of the chemicals have been demystified by members on the forum with the exception of the catalyst. I need to look up a copper cell in hopes of finding how they are constructed and what actually happens when it is running.

I contacted Shor yesterday and asked how well their cell would work if I put some circuit board connectors in it which had been soldered to the circuit board. Specifically, I wanted to know if the cell would get to the gold UNDER the solder. They did respond today and said the simplicity cell would not work very well on this. I purchased chemicals from them before I found the forum, but not since. Still, I may purchase the DVD which tells how to use the system just to gain more information on how it works. I've lost more than the DVD costs in losing lottery tickets, and it seems like the price for the DVD would not be an expensive education (that is assuming I can learn something from it).

Also, I did use the search function, but there seems to be an abundance of people willing to say negative things about Shor and almost nothing of how the system actually works. Has anybody been able to duplicate it? If so, I imagine the price would be quite a bit less than Shor's price of almost $600.

Again, my apology if I have stirred up a hornets nest. That was not my intention.

 

[Palladium]

You didn't do anything wrong? We ask questions and that's how we learn. Let me see if i can help. The shor system is better known by it's proper name of a fizzer cell. You melt an anode preferably one that doesn't contain a high amount of silver. Silver will passivate the surface and stop the reaction just like with karat jewelry. This process is basically ar with electricity. Anything above about 3 volts will do and the amperage is up to you because the more you apply the quicker it happens. Just remember a lot of heat can be generated as well as cl gas from the anode reaction. Some cl gas is given off. The anode is placed in a porous cup. This porous cup has a micron rating of .5 microns (Half a micron). The anode is dissolved by the generation of chlorine gas at the surface by the addition of electricity. At the same time on the other side of the cell barrier (Porous cup) we are making sodium hydroxide. All the sudden this resembles a chlor-alkali cell. The ions that dissolve on the anode side of the cell membrane can not pass the barrier and are blocked because of their ionic size separating the two solutions. The catalyst to start this reaction is regular old hydrogen peroxide added to the cup with the anode. Just a few ml is enough. It gets the process going and from there it is self replicating. after the gold anode is dissolved you add smb and precipitate the gold out. The only other thing you need is iodine free salt.

 

[Palladium]

Basic membrane cell used in the electrolysis of brine. At the anode (A), chloride (Cl-) is oxidized to chlorine. The ion-selective membrane (B) allows the counterion Na+ to freely flow across, but prevents anions such as hydroxide (OH-) and chloride from diffusing across. At the cathode (C), water is reduced to hydroxide and hydrogen gas. The only difference is instead of a non reactive anode that gives off cl we have a reactive anode that dissolves with cl.

 

[butcher]

I really like the simplicity of your answer Palladium.

I see shore as a company that will take a known process, and put their own twist on it, change something a little bit to get a patent, take common chemicals and give them mysterious names, (secret formulas of common fertilizer), they also seem to make claims that may be hard to achieve, they kind of remind me of people who learn a little bit from our forum and then post their secret process on the internet or Ebay, (basically stealing others hard work and claiming it as their own), selling something they learned form here (or at least what they think they have learned).

Snake oil salesmen bottling honey and whiskey and calling it their special formula with special healing magic medicinal powers, and selling it for much more than it is worth, information you may be able to get someplace else for free, or supplies for much less than they charge, yes it may help with the cough, or if you drink enough who care's if they are still coughing, but its only purpose is to take your money and give it to the snake oil salesman, who is just selling your grandmas recipe, claiming it will cure all disease known to man.

It is not that the process may not work, for its original application, but what is the true process, what are the true chemicals, we just need to find and look at grandmas recipe, not the twist shore put on it, trying to get the money from your pocket and hooking you like a sucker fish to their system.

 

[bswartzwelder]

Palladium,

Thank you for the pictorial and the easy to understand explanation. After having done several more hours of research, I have also found out what comprises the chemicals in the Shor Simplicity system. True to form, they are all easy to obtain and for the most part not highly dangerous like concentrated sulfuric acid would be. It would appear that anyone could make one of these. The biggest roadblock for me would be to find something which could be used as the membrane. Somewhere on the forum, someone said an old flower pot with the bottom hole plugged up might work. I just might have to give that a try.

The membrane is necessary because without it, the gold would plate off the the anode and plate back onto the cathode. The membrane prevents this from happening. From what Shor was describing in their instructions for using the cell, it was difficult to visualize the cell construction. I don't think this was an accident. Having seen your pictorial, it all comes together and makes sense. I really think that once you get the membrane issue solved, the rest should be easy enough for anyone to duplicate.

Butcher,

Man, I'm still laughing at your description of Shor. C'mon, quit pussyfooting around and tell us what you really think of Shor. I will be rolling on the floor laughing my posterior off thinking about your reply. Thanks, I really needed that, especially today. By the way, I was at a flea market today and picked up 10 used laptops for a total of $10. Some more parts to process.

P.S. While I truly respect free market enterprise, I really feel the same as Butcher when it comes to ANY company which rips people off by selling at exhorbitant prices. There are many instances on the Internet where people are asking about the chemicals sold by Shor. If those same people came to this forum, all their questions would be answered.

 

[Palladium]

You can use to separate tanks and connect them by a syringe filter with pvc tubing. Think of it as a salt bridge. This is how i make my experimental model for small scale testing and it worked fine. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Whatman-STERILE-Syringe-Filter-GD-X-Sterile-45um-Pore-Size-/140927956265?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20cff5f529

 

[butcher]

coors ceramic cup P-1/2-BC

http://css.coorstek.com/scripts/css512.wsc/co/co_porous.html

 

[bswartzwelder]

Thanks Palladium and Butcher. I ordered 3 of the syringe filters to give it a try. Then I saw Butchers response and looked up the coors porous cups. Price is a bit high since you have to buy a case of them. Interesting idea with the syringe filters. The cross sectional area of the tubing going to and from the filter will determine the maximum current flow which can pass through the cell. The more filters you add in parallel, the higher the amount of amps that could pass through. Will let you guys know hew it works when things arrive and I get a chance to try it out.

This really has intrigued me. It is a really simple design (+). It can run without constant supervision (+). The chemicals aren't as dangerous as concentrated H2SO4 (+). There shouldn't be any huge amounts of dangerous gasses generated (+) (but I will still use it outdoors). It should be easy to construct (+). The cost of operating it should be low (+). The cost of the chemicals used is not very high (+). The chemicals are all readily available (+). You cannot process all types of scrap gold (-) may be a drawback. I am truly surprised that more people on the forum haven't built this.

 

[Palladium]

The syringe filters are by design. In the prototype i built i wanted a cheap effective method for the cup. I leaned toward making the cup a consumable. What i mean by that is like filter papers, acids, paper towels, you know, consumables. It's just a cost of doing business. The reason why i did this is because i can see the pores of the ceramic cup becoming clogged over a period of time. To much trash for it to not at least become partly clogged and reduce cell capacity. They can be cleaned by placing them in an over and burning them out i believe or with acids, but if i can just unplug, trash, and switch and have 100% each time, well then..... So my alternate was for a cheap disposable solution that would simplify the process as well as be functional. The two i started with worked just fine for the at least 10 batches i did. Add a lure connector on the tubing end and a new filter is a click away. Whatman had just the answer in that filter design. The design is actually a multilayer mini cell membrane. You should look up the specs on it from Whatman. You are correct the pvc tubing in effect become conductive power lines, use two lines.

 

[bswartzwelder]

I would really like to rty this system. However, the coorstek cups are over $30 each and seem to only be sold in case lots. Is there anyone on the forum who has one for sale? If not, I could buy a case of these and would sell some of them at my cost plus shipping charges if anyone is intereasted. I just do not want to buy a whole case of them and then have them sitting around.

 

[butcher]

I think I would just try out an ceramic crucible, and see how it worked.

 

[bswartzwelder]

If the ceramic crucible is not porous with 0.5 micron pores, it probably wouldn't work. The pores are needed to allow the hydrogen ions to pass through while keeping the hydroxides from passing through. In the Shor system, they say you can process either up to either 5 ounces or up to 1 kilo. Strange how they mixed the units between ounce and kilograms. Anyhow, with the unit set to the 5 ounce configuration, I suspect the gold (anode) is inside the cup and for 1 kilogram the gold (anode) is outside the cup. This way, the current flow is reversed, the anode and cathode are reversed, the placement of the chemicals are reversed, and the capacity of the uint is optimized for the amount of gold to be processed. Actually, that part is pretty smart. I have a couple of unused crucibles laying around, but I hate to risk losing any gold.

 

[h hutch1945]

I am not a big fan of Shor when it comes to recovery or refining of gold. I don't like the fact that they make you keep coming back to them and paying an exorbitant price for common chemicals that most of us have used. Having said that, they have a method (Shor Simplicity System) which looks a little like a sulfuric cell except it uses a "special salt water bath". In their words, "To the water is added a powder which turns the gold, but not the other metals back into solid form.". This system uses some form of ceramic cell. Is this something people on the forum use? Has it been described on the forum? They use three chemicals which they don't tell you what they are. They are: GC Salt, Odor Free Precipitant, and a Catalyst.

I have asked Shor for the MSDS sheets for the chemicals they supply for the acid system. What I got did not meet the requirements of the Federal Government. They listed the chemicals by the name of storm precipitant, but did not list what chemicals it was comprised of. Same thing for the "Sub Zero". Yet the MSDS sheets say they are supposed to say what chemicals are in each.

I have not seen any information on the Simplicity System, but have also not seen where it couldn't be used indoors. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

if you haven't already bought one run from it as fast as possible, I got one from them and tried everthing I could to get it to work, followed instruction down to every detail spent hundreds of dollars and did not get anything at all from it, it will not work on computer parts, so I tried gold filled jewelry nothing, so I have filled it with their salt solution covered up in my shop, some people may have had good luck with it but not me, hope this helps. h hutch1945

 

[h hutch1945]

I just got through with another post a few minutes ago but forgot a few items, it can be used indoors although I would not advise it, you hook a 12v battery charger to it, and its supposed to run between 10 to 20 volts it has a electrode in it you hook the positive side to it the other you have to solder your ingot to a copper wire and put a electronic grade silicone on the exposed wire, I never got the ingot to stay on the wire the salt solution would eat through it, you put the ingot into the ceramic cell and its supposed to dissolve it and separate it, the gold is supposed to stay in the pouch that's inside the cell, I never could get the amps above 5 and it would not work at all on the computer parts although it might work on gold jewelry, I got so disgusted with it I just sit it aside before I took a sledge hammer to it, just kidding

 

[bswartzwelder]

I'm planning on building one with a few minor modifications and have all the parts (Hope I haven't missed any) on order. Also have a bunch of gold plated items with what appears to be a fairly heavy coating on them. Will see if it will do as they claim it will or not. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky with my design. I had to order a case quantity (8 pieces) of the Coorstek porous ceramic cups. If anyone is interested in purchasing 1 or 2, I will sell them for my cost plus the shipping cost to you.

 

[bswartzwelder]

h hutch1945, I have just reread your post and feel you may have made a mistake or two on your usage. According to the information I have, you hook the positive wire to the gold anode and the carbon rod is connected to the negative terminal of your battery charger. The polarity of the connections is critical to the proper operation of any electrolytic cell. Another point is that the gold does not stay in the pouch, but dissolves and goes into solution in the electrolyte and then has to be precipitated with SMB or some other precipitating agent. If I'm wrong, Palladium can point us both in the right direction as he has had some positive results using this cell.

 

[Palladium]

h hutch1945, I have just reread your post and feel you may have made a mistake or two on your usage. According to the information I have, you hook the positive wire to the gold anode and the carbon rod is connected to the negative terminal of your battery charger. The polarity of the connections is critical to the proper operation of any electrolytic cell. Another point is that the gold does not stay in the pouch, but dissolves and goes into solution in the electrolyte and then has to be precipitated with SMB or some other precipitating agent. If I'm wrong, Palladium can point us both in the right direction as he has had some positive results using this cell.

You are correct. They do make a silver cell that doubles as a parting cell for gold that works with nitrate solutions where the powder is not dissolved, but that appears to not be what he's talking about.