Electrochemistry Child safe gold recovery with DC current.

[Geo]

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4612093.html

if im reading this right, this is a process of dissolving a gold anode bar in saturated sodium chloride electrolyte, and then precipitating ultra pure gold. a gold parting cell sort of like the silver parting cell with a couple of differences. it never describes what the permeable membrane is made of. what can be used that will let the contamination pass through but small enough to stop the gold from passing through. is gold ions larger than silver or palladium? would NoIdea's Saran wrap membrane work?

 

[Dlog Renim]

i just read that link.. wish it was better explain lol (google translation = bad)

Semi-permeable barriers useful for this invention should have a pore size of 0.5μ (micron) or less. Pores greater than about 0.5 microns are permeable to the gold ions formed at the anode. At such larger pore sizes it has been noted that some gold is deposited on the cathode. At 0.5μ no gold is deposited and the conductivity of the cell is maintained. At smaller pore sizes, (two orders of magnitude, 0.005μ) cell conductivity is reduced.

 

[egus]

Hello all,
Please forgive me in advance if I put this in the wrong in the wrong place, this is my first after hello. Feel free to move it or delete it.
Anyway I had some intreresting results with a little experiment. First I boiled about 2 cups of water and added uniodidzed sea salt until no more would dissolve. I poured it hot through a coffee filter into a glass bowl. I used a piece of 1/4 square lead or solder for the (cathode? (-). Sorry but I don't even know where I got this. I just know it's grey, soft, and heavy. Using a pc power supply with a piece if bare romax copper wire for the (anode?(+). I cut a large handful of ide, com, serial, printer, and telecom ports, some ribbon cable ends, And 2 (solid gold pins?...it seems so). I then cut the plactic to expose the gold and wedged the anode into the connectors to contact as many pins as possible, submerged it and turned it on. Wow! 2 seconds and the gold was gone. The solution turned yellow slightly orange brown. 5 minuites I was done with the batch. I know I'll never get rich like this, but heres the cool part. I filtered the sulution back into the bowl and it was almost clear pale yellow. The filter contained about 1/4 cup of a beautiful, heavy, metallic yellow slightly orange brown mud. Mixed in water it would settle while I watched it. It kind of reminded me of a metallic lava lamp. Obviously this was way more metal than I put in. I thought I had found the holy grail of alchemy! I then mixed it with 1 part muratic and sadly it turned clear black with a few gold sparkles. This is more like I expected in the first place. Now I have a filter with the bottom slightly covered in black powder and gold specs, and some light green liquid.
I want to try this again soon as my grandchrildren leave and if anyone is interested I will take some photos.
Any tips, tricks, comments, or criticism would be wonderful. And no I did not test it with stannous. I have no confidence in my oatey lead free solder. I haven seen any purple yet. I have no confidence in my bonide stump out either. When I go back to work I,ll buy some real tin and smb. PS...........butyl diglyme????? Keep on keepin' on, y,all rock

 

[butcher]

You are generating chlorine and hydroxide in solution, yes it will put gold into solution, but also the other base metals will go into solution, if current is high you can also form chlorine gas in the air above the cell. this would not be a method I would choose to use, as to me it is the same thing, as if I took HCl and bleach and dissolved everything except maybe silver into solution including and tin if solder was involved, yes I could also cement value's out on copper, but I feel there are easier ways for me to recover the values, it may take me a little time to prepare the starting materials, rid the base metals, but then I would not be spending most likely more time trying to recover values form all of the junk in solution.

In my mind sometimes fast is not always better.

 

[egus]

Butcher,
Thx so much for your reply and concern.
I was just amazed at the frankenstein coctail I had created from almost nothing and was trying to figure what the heck it was. It looked very much like the chloroauric acid in goldnscrap's video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeC7LT4mDm8&feature=relmfu. I was also a little excited about havin' sumpin' I felt was worth postin' after reading this awesome forum for so long. I've calmed down now so don't call 911.

 

[butcher]

Actually I want to do some experiments making sodium chlorate, using a saturated salt, Tim Williams one of the chemist here on the forum has made it and has good information on his web site, for this and other electrolytic experiments, reading his documents you can learn a lot from his experiments, and success and failures.

Edit: To remove non-working links (see link to Tims website in following post).

I will not call 911, but please do be careful, when trying these things with metals, even after studying there are unknowns, and some of these unknowns could just put you in a pine box six foot under.

 

[egus]

Looks like study time again. Muchas gracias, 10-Q, and Danke Schoen my friend.

 

[Marcel]

@butcher:
Your links dont work..

 

[jimdoc]

You can find links here (first line under electrochemistry);

http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms/Chemistry.html

Jim

 

[NobleMetalWorks]

Not to be a smarty pants, but I don't think there is any recovery process that would be child safe. Specially on any electrolytic cell. Any child, or anyone who needs to be child proof could just la-di-da their way right into the cell. Because of the nature of a stripping cell, and the fact it is totally uncovered due to the evolution of gas, anyone can stick an appendage into the cell and not only be hurt by whatever solution is in the cell, but by the electrical current as well.

And then imagine how bad it would be if the cell were higher than the child was tall, and they bumped whatever table it was on and it fell on them.

It's like sex, the only way to be sure you are safe, is to practice abstinence. The only child safe is not to have children or people who act like children, anywhere near where you are processing material.

Scott

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I believe the OP was asking about using salt water as an electrolyte for an alternative to a more conventional (and far more hazardous) sulfuric based stripping cell. I know some work has been done by a couple of members here, but I can't locate the topic. One was using two small stainless steel cups connected with a salt bridge.

I'm guessing that's what ryobie is trying to do.

Dave

 

[lazersteve]

Here's a few posts on the salt cell:

Salt Cell Thread

Steve

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Thanks for the link Steve. Now if we could just plug that brain of yours into a USB port, output it to a database and index it for easy retrieval... 8)

Oh, joem?

 

[Geo]

Here's a few posts on the salt cell:

Salt Cell Thread

Steve

thanks steve, for the link. what was the verdict on the salt cell. did it work as well as it seemed to? im already conjuring a game plan for building one.

 

[lazersteve]

Geo,

Did you follow the link in the Salt Cell thread to my Karat Salt Cell Test?

If not here it is again:

Karat Salt Cell

That was the last time I pursured the salt cell for reasons described in the link above.

Steve

 

[Geo]

yea i finished the thread, thanks. i was wondering about running raw pins and not karat gold. i understand about dissolving gold and base metal in the same solution and if it dissolves all the material i can deal with that, but the idea of dissolving without acid or life killing fumes really peaks my attention. i think ill put something together and do some experiments where everyone left off.