Cleaning up a boilover

[jason_recliner]

Well it happens to nearly everyone sometime and today it happened to me. I'm not ashamed, but wouldn't mind a tip in recovering it.

I had a beaker of a few ceramic CPUs in PMAR on my coffee maker. It was about 60% full, though I know 50% is a good target. With tiny additions of KNO3, it would rise just 1-3%for a couple of seconds. I was comfortable with that. I assume by the last one it must have finally reached its maximum temperature because it went right over the top.

Naturally I have a catch tray but because of the size, shape and minimal heating of my "warm-plate", I have a plastic tray under the coffee maker (a very basic, old maker and easy to clean). It's a considered risk.

I managed to clean up the PMAR into just two paper towels, one soaked very full and the other moistened to finish off. There'll be a bit of iron because the hotplate is now nice and shiny. :lol:
I'm not so confident in the incineration recovery method I've always read. I feel that I will lose 90% of gold either up in smoke or to carbon. Or both.
The other option I can see is, before they dry out, to rinse them using the least water practicable, but several times, and throw the rinses into the stock pot.

Appreciate any thoughts.

 

[patnor1011]

Cant you just throw them to hot AR? You will likely be refining it all twice anyway.

 

[jason_recliner]

Thanks for that suggestion Pat.
At best I could put them in hot Poor Man's AR. If I did that, I expect one of two things to happen:
1: The paper fibres will all break down and I can flush and filter the very dilute solution. (It'll have to be diluted to get it all out of the fibres. That was behind my stock pot thinking.) Maybe your way is better.
2: The whole thing will turn into a dog's breakfast.

 

[kernels]

I would definitely just put the paper towels into the AR too. My AR seems to always start with a couple of old filters from the last batch, they break down nice and filter out easy. Not sure how different paper towels would be from coffee filters, but it's a easy solution. I wouldn't go the incineration way if I could avoid it.

 

[jason_recliner]

Thanks Kernels, for your concurrence. I appreciate the replies.

A couple of years ago I did this sort of thing more frequently, for I had to reverse mistakes in every second thing I touched. Back then, paper towels were my filters too. But I hardly remember now what I did back then.

In fact I barely use filters anymore; they're too lossy, especially at my hobbyist volume. Having an amateur's luxury of time, I tend to decant or syphon and just use one filter before precipitation. And a follow-up with a light water flush, until the yellow is gone, means there's scantily enough gold left in them to use for obtaining a positive stannous test. Professional refiners will obviously have different objectives.

 

[patnor1011]

Take small amount of water and soak them in, then squeeze it out like rag. Repeat 2-3x with fresh water. Combine waters and evaporate say 80% of it.

 

[kernels]

Take small amount of water and soak them in, then squeeze it out like rag. Repeat 2-3x with fresh water. Combine waters and evaporate say 80% of it.

Also a very good plan. There are always losses in this game, but they will be minimal this way.