I only have approximately 3 grams of flakes of placer gold. Ive inquarted karat gold with success and was hoping this would go smoothly as well. So i inquarted with 6 grams fine silver. Then corn flaked it. Then heated with dilute nitric and distilled water. And other then it boiling there has been no reaction. So i decanted liquid. Rinsed with distilled once. Should have done more then once because i thought id try some hydrochloric acid. And that ended up taking some of the gold into solution. Minor amount which i precipitated out via smb. Then rinsed with distilled again 3 times then tired yet again dilute nitric. And stil no reaction!what's going on!? Please help.
Attempting to refine placer gold
- Thread starter Rreyes097
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Well, that's not really quite inquarted. If we assume the flakes were nearly pure, you would end up with about 1/3 gold, not 1/4. It depends on how pure the gold was to start. If the gold content is too high, it can impede the action of the nitric.Rreyes097 said:
Why do you say there was no reaction with the nitric? Did you test the nitric with a drop of HCl to see if there was any silver in solution? Silver nitrate is colorless. You may have dissolved some from near the surface before the gold shielded any remaining silver at the core.
If the gold content is higher than 1/4 it can still work, but the remaining cornflakes can look just like they did when you started and feel very solid. I believe I've read of using as low as 2-1/2 parts silver to each part of gold.
Have you tried to dry them out and weigh them again? It will tell you if you how much metal has been dissolved, mostly silver.
Dave
It looks as if I may have decanted the silver if that's the case. I read that the placer gold is roughly 16-18 karat. So when i said a reaction i meant when the base metals disolved into solution and therefore coloring the solution. But it didn't do that, it reminded clear. So if there were none and since silver is colorless then maybe I'm wrong! As for the amount of silver well, to get the 6 gram number i just inputted the amount of gold and what i estimated the karat to be. In this case i believe i went with 16kt. Well i was given a handy spreadsheet that has all the calculations put in so it just gives me the information. So if i calculated it at 16kt then is 6 grams still not enough? Im currently drying out the gold now to see if the overall weight has changed. Thanks for your help!
I'll wait to hear what it weighs before I suggest anything more. Be sure to dry it completely with heat till the weight remains constant.
Dave
Dave
Most placer I refined from Alaska/Pacific Northwest was about 850-930/1000 parts fine.
Lou
Lou
rickbb
Well-known member
I'm curious as to why you would inquart placer flakes.
Wouldn't the relatively high gold concentration, and the very high surface area to density of the flakes lend itself to go directly into a dissolving solution? Especially if it was warmed and stirred while dissolving.
Wouldn't the relatively high gold concentration, and the very high surface area to density of the flakes lend itself to go directly into a dissolving solution? Especially if it was warmed and stirred while dissolving.
The main reason for inquarting is so you don't have to dissolve the gold and everything can be done in nitric. If done right you can get the gold to .995 and never need hydrochloric or a precipitant or denox.
So I can see why he tried, but the 'when in doubt add hydrochloric" logic really messed things up for him.
So I can see why he tried, but the 'when in doubt add hydrochloric" logic really messed things up for him.
So an update well the gold was dried and we wait and weighed 3.26 or approximately that. Originally it weighed 3.46 then out of six grams of silver take me to nine and a half or something like that. So I lost some silver bullets in my stock pot. But the problem is since I thought I had done it right and it was pure I went ahead and melted it. It came out with a reddish copper ish tint. Now I do not believe there was any contamination in The Crucible. But anything is possible I suppose. So what is everybody think now that I should do?
You could inquart again. This time, add about 9 grams of silver.
Or you could shot it and dissolve in AR.
Dave
Or you could shot it and dissolve in AR.
Dave
rickbb
Well-known member
FrugalRefiner said:
This is what I would do. In fact I would dissolve it two times if your goal is purity.
So AR? That's the best route?
