VolkD
Well-known member
The liquid is also clear but blue.
The electrolisys method is not suitable for stripping foils from pcb's as the persulfate only exists close to the anode if i understood it correctly.I have been researching persulfates as a fast gold finger releasing solution, to keep halides as far away from the gold as possible. Then I searched persulfates here and found this thread. I'll share some of what I've found:
1. There are apparently many ways to "activate" persulfates in solution (which are basically salts of piranha solution). What is meant by activation is the generation of sulfate radicals, which have an oxidation potential around that of Florine. Some common ways to activate persulfates are heat (50c-70c), UV light, base metal ions (Fe and Cu in particular), silver ions and alkalinity to name a few.
2. Attached are papers from 2016 and 2017 where ammonium persulfate was was explored as a way to recover gold from ewaste by removing the substrate. They were able to get 100% gold release in 5 minutes with 30psi pressure (pressure cooker) or 40 minutes with heat (70c I think) at normal pressure. Spent Ammonium Persulfate is Ammonium Sulfate.
3. Ammonium Persulfate (aka APS) can be regenerated or generated by electrolyzing a saturated ammonium sulfate solution with 30% by weight sulfuric acid. In theory you might could have a gold finger removing solution that was constantly electrolyzed regenerating the APS, you would have base metal sulfates in solution.
4. Potassium Peroxymonosulfate (PMS) is the potassium salt and sold in the pool section as non-chlorine shock. I bought some to experiment with, though I think I will likely go the APS route from electrolyzing ammonium sulfate (cheap fertilizer).
5. Most persulfate research can be found around the buzz term PS-AOP or PerSulfate based Advanced Oxidation Processes, which mainly refer to the use of persulfates to oxidize organic pollutants to CO2 from sewage to underground. The uses are not limited to organic pollutants.
There is much more than I can write here now, but long story short, I think it is definitely a promising alternative to CuCl and other halide based methods to release gold and possibly even dissolve base metals from inquarted gold.