Non-Chemical Burned filters yields ceramic like metal?

[Ignatz61]

I burned my filters from the Sulfuric cell filtrations, I have done a few batches so they started piling up.
I soaked in Alchol and burned, mixed the ash and repeated. I put the residue in a small digital melter I use for jewelry casting and melted.
When I finally separated the metal from the flux, (Boric acid) I found the metal is ceramic in nature. It is silver/gold in color, flows like metal when molten but when cool it snaps like a piece of carbide. I remelted a few times but it is still brittle. Weighs about 8 grams
There maybe some platinum in the mix but very little.
Anybody have an idea of what I have made? Do I need to reprocees with AR, and test for gold, Pt etc..?

 

[Oz]

I would crush it to a powder then process as usual for the expected PMs. Others may have a way for you to reduce its volume first but for 8 grams it may not be worth the extra steps.

 

[Harold_V]

You should not have melted the material. That's a mistake. You likely have an alloy of tin, lead and other nasties that would have been best left in the state they were. The resulting material may be ugly to process, depending on what is contained within.

You would have been far better served to have incinerated in an open pan, keeping all the contents below the temperature where they could melt. Once exposed to the heat, you would have eliminated junk that makes filtration hard. I would have then boiled the remains in HCL and water before attempting to dissolve the values. That way the gold chloride solution would filter without issues.

Melt the existing material and pour in water to make "cornflakes", which will yield a large surface area. Boil the cflakes in nitric to remove base metals. With luck, you'll be able to process in this manner to recover the values. Next time, don't melt the material.

Harold

 

[Ignatz61]

Thanks Harold,
I just saw your reply, I used to get an email when someone replied?
ANyway thanks for your help, I will take your advise and not melt before cleaning with hcl first. I tossed the thing. 8 Grams was worth the lesson I have learned. I was an awfull newbie when I first joined this forum now thanks to guys like you and steve and many others here I am starting to experience more and more sucesses and less failures.
I am still a rookie but a rookie that is starting to get it
Thanks again,
John.

 

[qst42know]

Next time toss it my way! :wink: