I did not use a membrane. Not sure of a membrane that could withstand such harsh chemicals. I havent looked too far into that however. It definetly did work. I saw the precipitate and it was amazing. Worst case I simply can connect a arduino to a shunt and measure once amperage shoots up to turn off current. I also am going to use sodium chlorate as a acid next time so hopefully simply boiling it will neutralize it. im not sure of any anode other than graphite that is resistant. The graphite I used however was very loose and exfoliated rapidly. I plan on trying copper next. Sacraficing some of it is fine, but im worried the iron resulted in some weird effect
I definetly want to replicate this and simulate what happened. Replicating it on a much smaller sample and carefully tweaking the variables till I find what makes it different. different electrodes etc. could simply be due to the spike in amperage and temperature redissolving. will be a while till I can replicate, hopefully soon. in the meantime will do a fire assay on the junk I created
As person who have more than 10 years of experience in professional chemistry, I can only recommend these steps:
1. Perform assay to PROVE that you have gold (and how much of it, this is also very important) in your ore, otherwise this can go nowhere and in the end for nothing at all.
2. If you want to prove your concept is actually working, SIMULATE best-case scenario conditions. Take some similar type of rock with NO GOLD in it, crush it as you crushed your ore. Leach it as you leached your ore and in the end, spike it with KNOWN ammount of gold in solution (weigh the gold, dissolve it in AR, pour it in, some 50-70 mg will be more than OK). Then perform electrolysis, redissolve the cement/metal deposit, and reclaim your gold in usual ways (de-NOx-ing and SMB precipitation). By weighing the resulting pure gold powder obtained, you will clearly see how much of the gold you can recover with your technique. Only then move to real samples. There are too many variables and possibilities/tweaks/mishaps that can ruin it completely. You need to know it beforehand, otherwise you can be celebrating recovery of 10mg of gold from ore sample, while not knowing you thrown away 50mg with "barren" rock, waste and sludges.
3. After validation of your methodology and technique, you can process the actual ore by this technique and expect realistically some accuracy and reproducibility of the procedure.
This is how it is done in real world, by real scientists, in industry. Anytime, when we need to actually know if something is working or if it is a viable way/approach to do something. There are reasons for us doing it this way. Long list of reasons.
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Last note:
If your anode will be made of material that can react with liberated chlorine, or if it can oxidize under potential (voltage) applied, you will practically only dissolve the electrode, which will dissolve into solution and plate on the cathode (copper will do exactly this). Even platinum won´t work in this case. Only common electrodes that can work in this scenario are graphite and RuO2 electrodes. Graphite will deteriorate, but not alter the composition of the electrolyte significantly.
This is how metals are actually electrorefined. Anode is made of impure metal (eg. iron/copper/nickel/silver/gold), and indiferent cathode/or made from pure metal which will be purified (stainless steel/metal of interest/graphite/platinum etc...). Under applied voltage, metal of the anode will oxidize (electrons removed) and dissolve into solution, simultaneously being plated on the cathode, where these electrons added back, closing the circuit.
Go with graphite for anode. Trust me.
