auric chloride from gold cell

[Geo]

ive taken 38 grams of black powder from my gold cell and followed the rinsing directions to a "T".water went from dark green to light green to clear after a few rinses.i then washed in hot hcl to remove excess copper.i then digested the black powder in hcl+cl and the solution still turned light green (guess you cant get all the copper out) at about 8 PM monday.i let the solution sit out over night to evaporate excess chlorine and at about 2 PM tuesday diluted with equal amounts of purified water and added 40 grams of SMB solution.when i added the water the solution turned cloudy and when i added SMB there was little color change.two hours later there was a nice layer of black powder (i havent dried and weighed yet) but the solution looked the same so i added another 20 grams SMB solution.there was a small precipitate of more black powder (very little) and a creme colored substance.i assume excess SMB falling out of solution.solution is still cloudy green.test with stannous chloride shows light purple,very weak.i checked against unprecipitated auric chloride which is deep purple,almost black.how do i squeeze the last bit of gold out of this solution and why is it cloudy? is it copper(II)chloride?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Sounds like possible copper color. You might want to try a couple of washes in Ammonia.

 

[etack]

When you add to much SMB to a solution it is very possible to git a false positive the color is more of a brown but with the color of the cooper in solution it might look light purple

Steve had a lot of post on this http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=8401&p=78655&hilit=test+stannous+chloride+false#p78655

Eric

 

[Geo]

ok.heated solution and it gave a very strong sulfur smell.after heating for an hour solution became clear.its still lime green.i tested solution while hot and it gave a definite positive,very deep purple.now ill let it cool and test again and if the test still shows positive ill try SMB at small increments and see if i can get anything to drop.

 

[etack]

A good indicator is do your test still show gold when dry or have sat for a while. gold test doesn't fade they stay purple. I have some tests in my bag that are 18 months old still purple.

If you put that much SMB in your solution and can smell SO2 most likely your gold is down.

Eric

 

[Geo]

OK.first amount dropped out of 38 grams of material was 7.4 grams.after cooling over night another 8.2 grams dropped out with 4.5 grams of chalky white powder.i assume this is spent SMB.after testing cold solution gave a negative result I'm now wondering where my gold is.so i went back to my filter paper that had all the milky residue in it and washed into a glass bowl and added a small bit of hcl and there was ALOT of black powder mixed in with the copper chloride that didn't dissolve the first time so now Ive crushed the rather large pieces and went back to hcl+cl.solution is no longer green but a particular shade of yellow. :lol: i think i may have found my missing gold. thanks for the replies.