Cannot precipitate gold from HCL and bleach

[Ckbouda]

It looks like Brass so I'll guess it shows Copper and Zinc.
But you can share what the result of the test was.

Didn't mention about the other metals in the mix he only said that inside tha bar is only 6.18 grms of gold and 8 grms of silver

 

[Barstool miner]

Dave,
Everyone here is glad to help those who do study and are trying to learn.
We don't have a problem answering a few questions as long as you working to learn.

There can be more than one problem of using too much bleach, the bleach is basic (opposite of an acid) it will turn some of your HCl into salt sodium chloride NaCl, the bleach sodium hypochlorite is made basic with sodium hydroxide NaOH, to keep the chlorine in solution, when you mix it with HCl acid some of the acid is consumed, neutralized by the sodium hydroxide in solution, as the acid converts the hypochlorite to chlorine gas, the bleach being mostly water (over 90%) dilutes this solution keeping most of the salt NaCl dissolved, until you go to heat and or evaporate solution, where you can begin to have much the sodium metal salt form a white precipitant.

It is possible that you can use so much bleach that you basically, destroy all of the HCl acid and actually just make a basic hypochlorite and salt solution in water.

Heat will drive off the chlorine gas, but can also concentrate solution, so if you have to add much heat you may want to dilute it afterwards to redissolve the salts.

You can test to see if your solution still contains chlorine, heat it until vapors come off of your solution, fill the cap off of a bottle of ammonia about half full (the ammonia will have a clear fumes you can smell), hold the capful of ammonia in the path of the fumes leaving your heated solution, let the two fumes mix, if the clear fumes from both mixtures form a white cloud of fumes when mixed, it proves chlorine gas in your solution, the white cloud is made when clear chlorine fumes and the clear ammonia fumes combine to form the white cloud of ammonium chloride gas.

The gold from cups, plates and dishes is normally very thin (like gold with other objects it can look like a lot more than there is, sometimes you can hold the glass up to the sun and see through the gold plating which sometimes looks green, it takes quite a bit of glassware to get much gold, basically what I am trying to say is you may not have as much gold as you think, sometimes with very little gold in solution, you can miss the small amount of fine brown powder even after it precipitates, I do not now how much glassware you processed, or how much gold you may or may not have in solution.

Have you done a stannous chloride test prior to adding SMB?
This can be an indicator of not only gold in solution, but also if the gold can easily be reduced with a chemical precipitant like SMB, too much oxidizer the gold will not easily be reduced, or can easily redissolve again when trying, sometimes you can watch the gold dissolve even in the stannous chloride test if the oxidizer is still there and not terribly strong,..

Thank you Butcher, I too learned new information.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Didn't mention about the other metals in the mix he only said that inside tha bar is only 6.18 grms of gold and 8 grms of silver

It will cost you substantial amounts of acid if you are to dissolve it all.
Maybe a smelting operation with the correct flux may drive off most of the base metals as Oxides into the slag.
Then a cupel to remove the rest.

 

[Ckbouda]

Two questions:

1: Why did you make a bar of scrap? Doing so makes recovery much more difficult and costly.

2: What scrap materials was it made of? By being specific in answering, the method of recovery can be determined.

A bit of advice: Never do anything without a plan that shows what should be done in the event of either success and failure at each step.

Time for more coffee.

Wise.im learning and im practicing it doesn't matter the outcome its the procedure

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thank you Butcher, I too learned new information.

Unfortunately he passed away last year.

 

[Barstool miner]

I am sorry to hear this. RIP Butcher

 

[Ckbouda]

Now its done...can i reduce it more with chemicals?im from Greece and acids like nitric are restricted on sale i can find hydrochloric acid 12 vol only and hydrogen peroxide 3 vol

 

[Ckbouda]

Two questions:

1: Why did you make a bar of scrap? Doing so makes recovery much more difficult and costly.

2: What scrap materials was it made of? By being specific in answering, the method of recovery can be determined.

A bit of advice: Never do anything without a plan that shows what should be done in the event of either success and failure at each step.

Time for more coffee.

Wise...now its done.can i reduce more with acids?im from Greece and i only have access to hydrochloric acid 12vol and hydrogen peroxide 3vol

 

[adam mizer]

Is been a day inside hydrochloric acid

I'm curious, what is the weight of the 480gm bar after sitting in HCl after 1 day.
Thinking about rate/speed of metal dissolution.
I like the idea of cupelation, but you need a furnace. Or possibly a torch setup running for a while.
Make your own cupel(s) from portland cement. (Owl Tech youtube does this): HERE
And: HERE
I think it may be a good time to learn this process in your instance.

 

[Ckbouda]

I'm curious, what is the weight of the 480gm bar after sitting in HCl after 1 day.
Thinking about rate/speed of metal dissolution.
I like the idea of cupelation, but you need a furnace. Or possibly a torch setup running for a while.
Make your own cupel(s) from portland cement. (Owl Tech youtube does this): HERE
And: HERE
I think it may be a good time to learn this process in your instance.

I was thinking the same as option

 

[adam mizer]

Oh.... also if you were to keep using chemical (slow and wasteful) method the bar should have been poured into shot for more surface area (exposure).

 

[Ckbouda]

I'm curious, what is the weight of the 480gm bar after sitting in HCl after 1 day.
Thinking about rate/speed of metal dissolution.
I like the idea of cupelation, but you need a furnace. Or possibly a torch setup running for a while.
Make your own cupel(s) from portland cement. (Owl Tech youtube does this): HERE
And: HERE
I think it may be a good time to learn this process in your instance.

Since i got so much waste metals inside...do i need to put also lead in the beginning?or the waste metal inside is good to start with?

 

[Ckbouda]

Oh.... also if you were to keep using chemical (slow and wasteful) method the bar should have been poured into shot for more surface area (exposure).

If i put the bar into hydrogen peroxide only what will happen?

 

[Ckbouda]

If i put the bar into hydrogen peroxide only what will happen?

Can hydrogen peroxide by itself dissolve gold or silver?

 

[adam mizer]

Since i got so much waste metals inside...do i need to put also lead in the beginning?or the waste metal inside is good to start with?

My experience is limited here.
The lead combines with the metals, and somewhat it helps (enhances) with the oxidation of base metals and the cupel (cement) absorbs these base metals (oxides) leaving the precious metal behind.

 

[adam mizer]

There are formulas of flux to learn and get a general idea of how much lead to use.
Some digging searching of posts of others is helpful.

 

[Ckbouda]

My experience is limited here.
The lead combines with the metals, and somewhat it helps (enhances) with the oxidation of base metals and the cupel (cement) absorbs these base metals (oxides) leaving the precious metal behind.

Tnxs everybody

 

[Ckbouda]

There are formulas of flux to learn and get a general idea of how much lead to use.
Some digging searching of posts of others is helpful.

Tnxs for the tips

 

[Yggdrasil]

Since i got so much waste metals inside...do i need to put also lead in the beginning?or the waste metal inside is good to start with?

If you are going to cupel you need some Lead.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Can hydrogen peroxide by itself dissolve gold or silver?

Peroxide will do nothing. Not even strong 30% will do much alone.