Copper II Chloride with PMG's

[Bluebloomer]

Hi all,

After a 2 year break from my refining hobby I decided to get back in and try to get rid of some buckets filling up my balcony.

There is about 100 liters of CuCl II testing positive for either gold or Pd.
In my infinite wisdom I assumed that the stockpot is filled with CuCl II so I added a lot of it to my original stockpot. Big mistake that was, because now I understand that the PMG's will not cement out this way.

So please help me how to solve this mess, if it can be solved at all ? About 40 liters is clean green copper 2 chloride, the remaining is brown AP.

How can I recover the values as I know my stockpots (2) contained some failed AR projects and the other one contained AR from failed MLCC projects. Now it is mixed with a lot of AP. So, does anybody have a suggestion of how to recover the values ?

I was thinking to dillute the brown AP with salt and water and a bit of HCL, and then try to cement the values, effectively doubling the solution I already have..

 

[butcher]

If there are any values in the solution you can cement them out by using a bar of copper metal, before keeping the solution for reuse or treating it for disposal.

You will learn about this while studying dealing with waste.

if you have CuCl powders settled out of solution most of your values will also be settled out of solution with them and the other salts.

 

[Bluebloomer]

Hello Butcher, thank you for your reply.

I read a stockpot topic that (if I understand correctly) a saturated AP solution cannot cement out any values because it would pacify the copper ?

Also, to complicate things, I have added cemented copper, instead of solid copper. The cemented copper contained values, so I was thinking to cement the copper, and dissolve it again in AP with a minimum of HCL, leaving the values as they would cement out.

unfortunately, the copper powder forms lumps and is coated with white, I guess copper I.
Those lumps are put in a beaker with a bubbler and I keep adding around 10 ML HCL to dissolve the white copper I and then add it to themain solution.

I thought I was being clever but instead I was creating a lot more work and problems. I should of stuck with the proven methods.. Ah well, it has also been 3 years ago, and I was a lot less patient then..

Using copper powder to cement out values does not work.. Trying to cement out values from a saturated AP / stockpot solution does not work.

 

[butcher]

What you are calling a saturated AP solution can mean a lot of things to me, depending on how saturated it is.
but mainly a solution of cupric chloride CuCl2 and cuprous chloride CuCl with other base metals in solution which can include metals like iron in FeCl3 and FeCl2.


If overly saturated the Copper I chloride will begin to precipitate white powders, bubbling air through the solution and a little HCl addition will convert the CuCl back into CuCl2.



Adding copper metal in a bar or powder form to this solution, to cement values, the metal copper has no effect on CuCl, but if saturated the CuCl can cling to and passivate the copper, the CuCl2 will dissolve some of the copper as itself converts to CUCl in the process (and if the solution is not overly saturated will stay in solution for the most part).
FeCl3 will also dissolve copper or it will also help to convert CuCl into CuCl2 and is itself converted into FeCl2 itself...
FeCl2 has no effect on the copper.


Basically before attempting to cement values from an overly saturated solution of cuprous chloride CuCl, bubble air through the dark brown solution and add a little HCl, to convert the Cuprous chloride CuCl back into cupric chloride CuCl2...

The copper powder has a very large surface area so adding more than the needed to replace the values is just adding excess copper as powders, what can dissolve-will and it will displace your values and cement them out along with the excess copper powders and the copper powders which was converted to conveted to CUCl as the white powder in the saturated solution along with any other insoluble chlorides.

a large solid bar of copper with a large surface area works best, but you can use cemented copper metal powders, if you do not use too much, if you do use too much copper metal in powdered form, you can dissolve the copper and most of the other metal chlorides without putting the values back into solution for the most part...