Congratulations! It's a bucket of sludge!

[Astraveller]

Hi GRF, my name is Linton; my nick is Astraveller for no particular reason. This is my first post although I have been lurking for a few months and I am working with TonyD who has posted a few times.

We have been trying various techniques such as the Clorox process and acid peroxide but all we have to show for it is various jam jars and a white bucket with black sludge with gold flakes in them and a lot of partly dissolved fingers and chips. This, as you can imagine, has been very frustrating, so today (Sunday) we sat down and watched Lazersteve’s videos on processing foils (HCl and Clorox) and the one about making Stannous chloride and we set out to duplicate the process.

Guess what? We got another jar of sludge and no Stannous chloride! So with my Spidey senses tingling I decided to check the small print on the 20 litres of Hydrochloric acid that we were using and discovered that one of us (not saying which) had purchased 20 litres of Sodium Hypochlorite, which also cleans concrete. So it turns out that we have been adding bleach to bleach and then topping it up with more bleach and then adding a cup full of Hydrogen peroxide to some of it.

We have now decided that one of us should spend more time on the technical/chemical side, posting questions on the forum etc. and the other smashing computers! (Not saying which!)

So the first question has to be – what can we do with a bucket of sludge and a bag of half dissolved fingers?

More questions will follow – thanks in advance, Linton.

 

[lazersteve]

Linton,

You can easily start over by cementing out the values on copper and process this black sludge with the correct chemicals.

Make some proper stannous chloride and verify you have dissolved gold.

The foils should be filtered out before you move forward.

If you have dissolved gold, add some solid copper to push the dissolved gold out of the solution as a black sludge.

After filtering out the sludge that forms as the copper dissolves into the solution add this sludge to the foils that were filtered out. If the copper doesn't react, try adding a small amount of HCl.

Steve

 

[Astraveller]

Thanks Steve, for the reply,

I have now sourced HCl at 32% (500ml) for $2.65 and/or HCl at 18-20% (5Ltr) for $8.40. Which would you buy? Actually it’s pounds not dollars but the question is the same and there is less difference these days
I am rolling up my sleeves up and putting on the rubber gloves in readiness for tomorrow. Linton.

 

[lazersteve]

Linton,

I use 31.45% muriatic acid from the local hardware store. If you buy the cheaper stuff (20%) just adjust the amount added up to compensate for the reduced molarity.

Steve

 

[Astraveller]

After all the problems we’ve been having – this is a breath of fresh air – thank you Steve
It’s 11.18 pm my time and I’m going to bed, it’s a pleasure to touch base with you.

The best, Linton

 

[skoorb]

I made the mistake of jumping in head first. I went and bought the $55 kit from shor and I procesed 5 computers (dell optiplex p3's) I did a small batch to see what I could yeild. This was BEFORE I found this forum. when all was said and done, I ended up with 1/2 a gram of gold. I was, needeless to say, UPSET with the result. I figured on atleast 1 to 1.5 grams. Well lets just say I did not get all the stuff out of the computers.

Ok on with the question.

I tore apart another 50 computers :shock: did the same thing as before and now I have 1.5 gallons of, well, Texas Tea? :!: :!:

Not clear, black fluid. This fluid had hardly any solids at the bottom after sitting for almost 2 days. So I am wondering how can I get my gold from this solution. Is there a way to start over? From now on I have decided I am going to use Steves method but I really want my gold lol.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I tried adding some peroxide to the solution and nothing.

Thanks in advance for any help! :shock:

 

[butcher]

Howdy, without knowing what chemocals the solution are, or what metals it contain would be hard to advise, there are many types of texas tea,
if all else fails you can use copper, or zink to precipitate values out of solution and reprocess the washed and incenerated powders.

 

[skoorb]

ok well,

It has muriatic acid sub zero urea about 1/2 cup of peroxide storm precipitant and water.

it had lots of fingers from memory sticks
processors
pins on some of the pins I left the plastic on and some I didnt but all the metals have beeen dissolved. Please dont tell me I have crap

I was wondering about adding copper. I dont not believe my solution is acidic any longer. whould I need to add more hcl?

also after thinking, it has been kind of cool, do I need to add heat. I considered boiling off all the solution but was affraid i would just have a empty pyrex container.

 

[butcher]

I would use zink (check hardware roofing strips for source)with some hcl and heat in pyrex on hotplate drop out values, test solution after settleing 24 hours (stannous chloride), neutralize spent barren zink solution before discarding. incenerate powders, put in jar and find Hokes book, and study the forum, untill you have a plan, and then get that gold with common chemicals, with what you learned.