I was wondering just how much gold you can suspend in a sulfuric acid. using reverse electroplating, 2 gallons in a large round Pyrex container. The reason for my question is this. I have lots of material to process, say 20 lbs of fingers, if i do one or two lbs at a time, will the saturation or suspension of the gold ever reach critical mass to which it cant suspend any more? do i need to just use an AP process on this? if so what would be the answer to the question above with 2 gallons of AP? I don't want to stop the process once i get started. thanks
Ball Mill thoughts
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Barren Realms 007
In Remembrance
ttatum007 said:
Some of your gold will possibly stay in suspension, but most should settle to the bottom of the container.
You need to watch your heat build up in your solution while deplating.
You will need to cover your solution to keep it from absorbing water.
Both of the above can cause the sulfuric to start attacking your base metal.
You will want to make sure that your pins have no solder on them.
The cell will not deplate under the solder. And the solder can contaminate your solution.
Best way to tell when you need to change your solution is when your amp draw will not drop when your material is finished deplating. This indicates a dirty solution.
Go to Steve's web site and look at his video.
Barren Realms 007
In Remembrance
What did that have to do with a ball mill?
ttatum007 said:
Fingers would process best in AP or 35% nitric acid. You'll need to keep the solution aerated (aquarium bubbler) and loosely covered so it remains active during the recovery process. The soluiton should never get black colored like ink or it will quit working. You'll also want to use more than a 3 gallon container for 20 pounds of fingers, try a series of large plastic totes instead.
A sulfuric cell is full when the black gold powder begins shorting out the cell (the settled gold powder shorts the electrodes when using the basket) or there is too much floating gold sludge to get the parts to strip.
There are numerous posts on these two subjects if you use the search features.
Steve
To use reverse plating on fingers would probably be very hard, you need to make electrical contact with the metal fingers for the process to work.ttatum007 said:
For fingers I would recommend nitric acid or AP treatment to get rid of base metals.
/Göran
Two gallons of sulfuric should be able to hold the gold from 20 pounds of fingers. HOWEVER, how do you plan on making electrical contact to each and every little individual finger? This is an electrolytic method and not an immersion method. The gold won't strip without electrical contact. If you make contact to one, it will sometimes strip the ones next to it, due to stray currents, but you can't depend on it. Also, the sulfuric can attack certain board materials and you might end up with a mess. Pins, yes. Fingers, no.
I think you need to consider another method, such as HCl/H2O2 (or, HNO3), to dissolve the copper, and then dissolve the gold residue in HCl/bleach or AR and go from there.
I think you need to consider another method, such as HCl/H2O2 (or, HNO3), to dissolve the copper, and then dissolve the gold residue in HCl/bleach or AR and go from there.
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No! Sulfuric acid in and of itself does not dissolve gold, nor is it capable of keeping gold in solution. Current in the proximity of the anode creates persulfuric acid, which can, and does, dissolve gold. As the solution migrates away from the anode, it reverts back to sulfuric acid, liberating the gold as a finely divided powder which we observe as the blackish purple sludge that is the target of our activities. Therefore, you can operate a cell until it starts conducting from an excess of particulate matter that remains in suspension, or until it accumulates to the point of forming a short circuit. In essence, you do achieve a level of saturation, but not because of dissolved gold.ttatum007 said:
Harold
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I thought I might say something about ball mills in this string.
I bought a 1.5 cu ft electric cement mixer from Northern Tool and fabricated an access hole plug and extensions for the mixer fins. I used some twenty pounds of 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4 steel balls. It works great! Sure is loud though.
I bought a 1.5 cu ft electric cement mixer from Northern Tool and fabricated an access hole plug and extensions for the mixer fins. I used some twenty pounds of 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4 steel balls. It works great! Sure is loud though.
Stand it on some rubber matting that helps to reduce the noise and cover the front with either hessian sacking or heavy duty plastic bag material held on with bungy clips as used on cars to hold luggage on this keeps the dust down.Howard said:
